By Ralph Ciprianofor BigTrial.net
Police yesterday arrested a top advisor in the Philadelphia district attorney's office for allegedly leaving her four-year-old daughter unattended in a parked car.
Cops were on routine patrol on the 200 block of Rittenhouse Street in the Mount Airy section of the city at 3:21 p.m. when they were flagged down by an unknown male who informed them about the child who had been left alone in the back seat of a gray Ford Fusion.
The police made contact with the child, unlocked the car door through an open window and took the child into custody. The victim's mother, identified as Dana Lynn Bazelon, 40, of Center City, returned 34 minutes later with her other six-year-old child.
The mother told police that she went for a walk with her son and didn't want to wake her daughter because she hadn't been sleeping well. Bazelon told the police that she is an employee of the D.A.'s office, as an assistant district attorney. On her Facebook page Bazelon states that she is a "proud Philadelphian" and "criminal justice reformer" who is a "policy advisor" to D.A. Larry Krasner.
Police placed the mother in custody and transported Bazelon and her two children to the Special Victims Unit. The four-year-old was reported by police to be in good condition.
In 2018, Bazelon was credited with drafting a new policy that made it easier for people with criminal records to get those records expunged, except for those charged with domestic abuse.Bazelon, who has a close personal relationship with Krasner, was said to be under consideration for becoming his chief-of staff with the recent departure of Arun Prabhakaran. He resigned to become executive vice president for the Urban Affairs Coalition.
Police charged Bazelon with endangering the welfare of a child. When it comes to prosecuting the case, Krasner will have to recuse himself, and turn it over to the state Attorney General's office.
Bazelon, who holds a bachelor of arts degree from Amherst, got her law degree from Georgetown University. She is a former law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Michael Baylson, a former Philadelphia public defender and associate at the law firm of Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg LLP in Philadelphia.
Her father is a federal judge, she's got a sister who's a law professor, and another sister who's a staff writer for The New York Times magazine.
A Philadelphia lawyer who knows and works with Bazelon described her as "a very bright, practical, and very committed person" who also happens to be "accessible, modest and reasonable."
"It breaks my heart to see this happen to her," the lawyer said. "This is such a travesty, it's just a nightmare for her. Police have an enormous amount of discretion about whether to charge a case such as this, and there was no reason to charge this case."
If the case is prosecuted, a few lawyers agreed, the most that will happen is that Bazelon will wind up in Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition, or ARD, where she would receive counseling or do community service.
The lawyer added that he wondered if the decision to arrest Bazelon was the cops way of delivering "a gigantic fuck-you to Larry Krasner."