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| Photo credit: Tim Tai/The Philadelphia Inquirer |
for BigTrial.net
Jane Roh, the official spokesperson for District Attorney Larry Krasner who's been stonewalling this blog for months, gave an interview to The Philadelphia Inquirer on Friday where she claimed a decision to withdraw drug charges a year ago against alleged murder suspect Hassan Elliott "had no bearing on public safety."
Stop lying, Jane. The sequence of events, as laid out in court records -- as well as just plain common sense -- tells us that dropping any charge against a dangerous murder suspect out on the run would have an obvious impact on public safety. It was also something that any prosecutor with a brain would have never done.
But it was part of a pattern. Court records show that with the D.A.'s office under Krasner, every time Elliott was hauled into court, the rookie prosecutors manning the turnstiles repeatedly did him favors to put him right back out on the street again. Favors that Krasner and Roh don't want to talk about right now because the district attorney's office has blood on its hands. Blue blood.
Elliott, of course, was the suspect in a murder case that a SWAT team led by Corporal James O'Connor IV was hunting for Friday morning in the Frankford section of the city. When the cops came to the door, the suspects started shooting, and they murdered Cpl. O'Connor, 46, a decorated 23-year police veteran, father and grandfather.
In the Inquirer story where Roh made her bogus claim about public safety, John McNesby, president of FOP Lodge No. 5, didn't buy it. McNesby told the pro-Krasner Inquirer that Elliott "should have never been out on the street." And that Krasner was responsible for creating a "revolving door" for criminals.
The records show that McNesby is right on both counts, and that Roh is just plain wrong as she attempts to cover for her boss. She's betting she can pull this off because she spread her lies in the paper of record that's a safe space for Progressives. She also has in her favor the court records involving the dropped drug charge against Elliott are designated "Limited Access," so the press and public can't ever see them.
But that's another problem that Roh and her boss, Progressive Larry Krasner, who promised to run an open and transparent administration, don't want to talk about, namely doing secret favors for dangerous criminals on the run who subsequently turn out to be cop killers.
Let's take a look at the record that Roh and Krasner would rather not talk about, a record that they've deliberately hid from the public. And, with the help of their Progressive pals at the Inquirer, they hope to cover up.
As I have reported previously, before the SWAT team went looking for the 21-year-old Elliott, he had been the recipient of multiple breaks from the district attorney's office that repeatedly kept him out of jail.
On Jan. 24, 2018 in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, before Judge Robert Coleman, Elliott pleaded guilty to a negotiated plea of carrying firearms without a license. As part of the deal the D.A. agreed to drop two other charges against Elliott: intentional possession of a controlled substance, and carrying firearms in public.
The judge sentenced Elliott to 9 to 23 months in prison and three years probation. But on Jan. 24, 2018, Elliott walked out of court a free man because the judge accepted as his prison term the amount of jail time previously served.
Since Elliott was arrested on June 8, 2017, however, he had only served seven months and 16 days. So that's one break for Elliott.
There are plenty more.
While he was on probation, the judge instructed Elliott to get a job, get his GED, and of course, stay off drugs. But court records show that Elliott repeatedly did not live up to his end of the bargain.
Elliott was subsequently brought before the judge three times for alleged parole violations. But rather than put Elliott in jail for any lengthy time period, where he belonged, the district attorney's office repeatedly gave the defendant one break after another.
On one of those alleged parole violations, a probation violation warrant was issued on July 12, 2018. Elliott was picked up on July 23, 2018. The judge found that Elliott had indeed violated his parole, but Elliott got another deal.
The judge gave the defendant back time, which instead of what could have been a sentence of 16 months, only amounted to an extra 10 days. It was time that Elliott had already served behind bars while he was awaiting the hearing on his probation violation.
At an Aug. 2, 2018 hearing where Elliott got only 10 days in jail, instead than 16 months, the district attorney's office according to court records was represented by Assistant District Attorney Audrey Westerman.
Another Krasner recruit, the rookie prosecutor had previously spent four years in the public defender's office. She had no experience as a prosecutor, but in Krasner's depleted office, she came in as a supervisor, assistant chief of the D.A.'s diversion programs. Diversion, as in alternatives to jail.
Like many prosecutors in the district attorney's office under Krasner these days, Westerman is a fresh-faced newcomer. On July 11, 2018, the D.A.'s office posted a video on Facebook announcing the hiring of Westerman. The caption under the video said, "She seeks justice through diversion work."
"Welcome, Audrey!" the caption said. In the video, a smiling Westerman said, "I love diversion because it gives people a second chance and it gives them the tools that they need so that they don't ever get arrested again. So I'm excited to be part of the unit."
Many experienced prosecutors shipped out after Krasner got elected. And the first thing brilliant Larry did after he took office was to fire the most senior 31 prosecutors that he had left. He replaced them with hand-picked recruits, a rookie class of 60 suitably diverse assistant district attorneys, 18 of which promptly flunked the bar exam.
Why Westerman was there for Elliott's hearing is a mystery. When you're a chief or assistant chief of a unit, you're typically too busy managing a bunch of assistant district attorneys to go to court.
There's also a mindset to consider. In Philadelphia, before Krasner showed up, an assistant district attorney typically was trained to see a defendant as a criminal that he or she was there to put in jail, to protect the public, as well as seek justice for the crime victim. A public defender, however, sees a defendant as a client that they're there to help.
In Larry Krasner's upside down district attorney's office, however the mindset of "prosecutors" now is that they're primarily there to help criminals, not crime victims. And screw the public. So that's why Krasner likes to recruit future prosecutors from the public defender's office. Because, as he has stated previously, as our "reform" D.A., he's the "public defender with power."
The power to let criminals out of jail and keep their criminal records out of sight.
Elliott did get another chance, as any public defender would have argued for, but then he got arrested again.
On Jan 29, 2019, Elliott was arrested on a charge of possession of a controlled substance, which amounted to a direct violation of his probation. He could have been thrown in jail the day of that arrest for violating his parole, and he would have had to serve another 16 months. But it didn't happen.
Elliott, according to Roh, subsequently stopped coming to court. On Jan. 30, 2019, court records note that the defendant did not appear at a preliminary arraignment on the drug charge.
On March 26, 2019, an arrest warrant was issued for Elliott on murder and robbery charges. This was the warrant that the SWAT team showed up with on Friday morning in Frankford to arrest the suspect. According to the Inquirer, the crimes at issue were supposedly committed on March 1, 2019.
But Assistant District Attorney Donald Burns Jr., who had only been hired a month before, on Feb. 25, 2019, told the judge that the district attorney's office was withdrawing the drug charge against Elliott on grounds of "prosecutorial discretion."
Court records don't say whether Elliott showed up that day. It's hard to believe he did, as homicide detectives could immediately have taken him into custody on the arrest warrant for murder and robbery. If Elliott didn't show up, it was just crazy for the prosecutor to grant a murder suspect on the run any favors.
"It's unheard of, you don't drop charges for someone who doesn't show up in court," said a veteran prosecutor who sought anonymity. "When a person is charged with murder, every other charge you have you keep alive. It's like a war; you use every weapon available."
You don't drop charges because as an assistant district attorney, you could potentially use evidence gathered in other cases as well as lesser charges filed against the defendant while prosecuting the murder case against Elliott. And if there's a deal to be struck, keeping the drug charges alive would have given the prosecutor more leverage in any plea bargain negotiations.
But under "Let 'Em Loose Larry, the D.A.'s office gave Elliott another pass; don't worry about that drug charge, Mr. Armed Drug Dealer, you're free to go. And good luck escaping the police.
According to Roh, the decision to withdraw the drug charge "had no bearing on public safety" because, she claimed, the homicide warrant was far more serious.
But a veteran prosecutor says that's B.S.
"The fact that the defendant had pleaded guilty to a gun charge with drugs, was caught with drugs again, and had previously violated parole three times, he's a danger to the public," the veteran prosecutors said. "When a person's arrested with guns and drugs, that really means that you're not a drug addict, you're a drug dealer. And you have a gun on you to protect you against rival drug dealers. This is a bad guy who should have been in jail."
Besides dropping the narcotics charge against Elliott, the D.A.'s office under Larry Krasner did one more favor for Elliott. According to the Inky, "the court records for his possession case were not publicly available."
But a "secure court summary" leaked to Big Trial shows that Elliott's narcotics case is designated in red type as a "Limited Access Case," meaning the press and the public can't see it. Neither can the feds, or a judge, unless the D.A. allows it. Under limited access cases, only local cops and prosecutors are allowed to view Elliott's drug arrest.
The Limited Access Case designation was part of a criminal justice reform act passed in 2018 by the Pennsylvania state legislature to give former criminals a "Clean Slate." The act, which went into effect on June 28, 2019, shields from public view arrests that didn't result in convictions, summary convictions more than 10 years old, as well as convictions that are second or third degree misdemeanors, and are hidden from view if the defendant has maintained a conviction-free record for ten years.
On July 1, 2019, while Elliott was still at large, the court processed an order for a limited access designation for the drug charge against Elliott.
So there you have it folks. When Jane Roh says dropping the drug charges on Elliott "had no bearing on public safety," she's just full of it.
She's wrong because it was a stupid thing to do, granting a favor to a drug dealer who carries guns, is a murder suspect on the run, and a dangerous guy who would be involved in the future murder of a cop.
In the same interview, Roh also tried to tell the Inquirer that the cops stationed outside the hospital where O'Connor lay dead linked arms and kept Krasner from entering. Even though Fox 29 had broadcast live video of the event.
Jane keeps lying, and the useful idiots at the Inky continue to assist her in her efforts to cover up for her boss.
Because the real story poses a bunch of questions about why the D.A.'s office is repeatedly doing favors for a dangerous criminal to keep him out of jail, a criminal who would go on to be involved in the murder of a cop.
And these are questions that the D.A.'s office has no intention of answering.