for BigTrial.net
Today, at 2:45 p.m. on the mezzanine level of the Philadelphia District Attorney's office, they'll be holding a little party, featuring "pizza and beverages" for departing Assistant District Attorney Patricia Cummings.
"As we wrap up another long week here at the DAO, I would like to invite you all to a small gathering to celebrate the work and wisdom of our very own, beloved, Patricia Cummings," ADA Dana Bazelon wrote in an email yesterday afternoon to a few select employees at the D.A.'s office.
Cummings, as chief of Krasner's Conviction Integrity Unit, was responsible for springing 26 convicted murderers and rapists out of jail that the D.A. arbitrarily decided had been falsely accused and convicted. Cummings, who had a reputation for being an "untouchable" in the D.A.'s office answerable only to Krasner, was also responsible for waging a secret war against police.
For the past four years, using complaint files and personnel records, Cummings has sought to discredit some 750 cops by putting them on a misconduct register, according to the Inquirer. Dozens of those cops also wound up on a "Do Not Testify" list.
If a cop can't testify against a defendant, and the defendant goes free, that's a prospect that would warm the heart of Krasner, the former ponytailed, radical defense lawyer who defended accused drug dealers, murderers and rabble rousers for 30 years while famously suing the police department 75 times.
This week, the D.A.'s war on cops spilled out in public when Krasner and Cummings went to Philadelphia Common Pleas Court and Municipal Court, seeking a contempt order against the Police Department, for not turning over personnel files and complaints regarding cops involved in a half-dozen ongoing criminal cases.
At a 41-minute press conference, Krasner disclosed that his office has dropped some 4,000 subpoenas on the police department, which he claimed has routinely been stonewalling when it comes to handing over documents they are constitutionally required to disclose.
"The only people being helped by the system are a small number of dirty cops," Krasner charged, with the soon-to-be-departed Cummings at his side.
In discussing his war on cops, Krasner declared that his only goal is to ensure that "the process is fair and there is compliance with the Constitution."
The problem, as Krasner saw it, is that too often, internal police records contain proof that cops lie. And that when D.A.'s office asks for records "that have shown deceit" on the part of cops, Krasner said, the FOP and the PPD stonewall by either not turning over the records, or turning them over heavily redacted with "a digital black marker."
In introducing Cummings at his press conference, Krasner hailed her "distinguished work" in freeing 26 convicted murderers and rapists. According to Krasner, Cummings, "has set something of a national standard" for freeing convicted felons that Krasner contends were "innocent people sitting in jail for decades" for crimes they didn't commit.
Unfortunately, in those "exonerations," there is no traditional adversarial process where evidence is produced, and witnesses come in and testify in front of a judge and/or a jury, so that the credibility of the evidence and the witnesses can be tested.
Instead, when somebody is "exonerated" under Krasner and Cummings, a defense lawyer files a petition making all kinds of allegations of police and prosecutorial misconduct in a motion for a new trial. Next, Krasner's office agrees not to fight it. Then, when the motion for a new trial is granted, the D.A.'s office lays down again and drops the charges.
That gives the exonerated party a chance to file a civil rights lawsuit against the city, and collect a pay day. As did Anthony Wright, one of Krasner's favorite "exonerated" felons that the D.A. mentioned at his press conference, who collected $10 million.
In her remarks, Cummings said she was going to follow Krasner's request to "get a little more nutsy and boltsy" with reporters about the specifics of the D.A.'s beef with the police department.
What she's after, Cummings said, is "impeaching information, any kind of information that could effect the credibility of a witness." She wants the police department to turn over any records that show that cops may have "lied" or "been deceitful about the use of excessive force." Or maybe by their social media posts, cops have "shown themselves to be racially biased," Cummings said.
Cummings lamented that she and Krasner had to go to court to threaten their "partner in law enforcement" by asking a judge to hold the PPD in contempt, which, if carried out to the extreme, might put somebody in jail.
But that's not what they're after, Cummings said.
"What we want is compliance," she said. "We want them [the PPD] to be forced to comply." And on top of that, Krasner said, he wants a judge to monitor the police department in the future to make sure that they turn over what they're supposed to to the D.A.'s office.
Such as records that may contain "all kinds of facts about officers lying," Cummings said, impeaching information that "goes to the very core of what it means to be credible or not credible."
Both Krasner and Cummings were condescending in their remarks about Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw's response to their demands.
"We have hopes that she wants to do the right thing," Cummings said about the docile Outlaw, a lightweight who's always afraid to take on Krasner publicly, no matter how many armed and dangerous criminals he lets out of jail. And no matter how many people get shot or killed in the process.
This in a town where, as of last night, we have 329 murders, as opposed to this same date last year when we had 261, a 26% increase. At this rate, Philadelphia will set an all-time record this year with 628 murders. The old record, set back in 1990, at the height of crack cocaine epidemic, was 500.
Sadly, according to Cummings, Outlaw "doesn't absolutely understand the depths of the problem we've been confronting." But, Cummings assured the reporters in the room, "We're doing everything with integrity."
In his remarks, Krasner said he spoke to Outlaw the day before, and that the police commissioner showed "a willingness and commitment to further this conversation."
Krasner also took a swipe at Outlaw's boss, Mayor Kenney, saying he tried to talk to Kenney about this issue, but "the mayor's not terribly accessible these days."
Despite that, Krasner said, "I'd be delighted to have a phone call from Mayor Kenney right now."
Got that, Jim "Mask-Up Vax-Up" Kenney? When you get a free minute from imposing more restrictions and crackdowns on the civil liberties of your subjects, Krasner wants you to call him.
At his press conference, Krasner also slammed FOP President John McNesby, saying that McNesby is "hellbent" on protecting dirty cops, and that "John McNesby lives in Frank Rizzo's shadow."
Rizzo, who's been dead for 30 years, is still very much alive in the mind of Larry Krasner as the villain he loves to hate.
Ultimately, Krasner said, his goal is to change the culture of the police department and get the public to realize they can "trust this office."
"That is what we are trying to accomplish here," Krasner said at the end of his press conference.
It all sounded perfectly reasonable, but there are a few problems about trusting the D.A.'s office.
Problem No.1 -- we can't trust Cummings.
That's because Cummings, who gave one speech after another about the credibility of cops, and lectures about constitutional rights, has some glaring credibility problems of her own that were the subject of Outcry, a five-part documentary series that aired last year on Showtime.
Outcry presented the story of Greg Kelley, a high school football star in Texas who in 2014, was sentenced to 25 years in prison without parole for sexually assaulting a four-year old child in a day care.
Only Kelley was falsely convicted. And one of the villains of the Showtime series was Patricia Cummings, Kelley's defense lawyer at the time, whom a judge found, was not only ineffective, but also had an undisclosed conflict of interest.
It turned out that Cummings had as a former client the woman who owned the day care where the attack on the four year-old took place. And the owner of the day care had a son who not only lived there, but also was a dirt ball suspected of being the real child abuser.
But Cummings kept quiet about her conflict of interest for three years while Greg Kelley, an innocent man, rotted in jail. It's a situation that Cumming, Ms. Integrity and Transparency herself, declined to discuss last year when I asked her about it.
This is the same ADA Cummings -- the gal who presented herself at the press conference as a paragon of virtue on the hunt for dishonest cops -- who, during her time in Philadelphia, was recently admonished by a federal judge for a lack of candor.
Problem No. 2 -- we know we can't trust Krasner.
Time after time, Krasner has failed to fulfill his obligation as D.A. to be a "minister of justice," especially when he's going after cops. Since he took office Krasner has sought felony indictments against 52 cops. But luckily for the cops, Krasner's prosecutors are so inept that his present won-loss record against those cops in those felony indictments is 0 for 52.
That's right. For the past four years, when the 52 accused cops went to court, not a single judge or jury has ever bought a Krasner argument that any of the cops had committed a felony.
Worse, Krasner has repeatedly gone into court with case after case against a cop that turns out to have an overzealous prosecution behind it but no evidence. A glaring example was Krasner's indictment of former Staff Inspector Joe Bologna, whom Krasner claimed had used his metal baton to bash the skull of a protester, opening a wound that required 10 staples and 10 sutures.
The only problem was that video of the event, which was broken down frame-by-frame in the courtroom, clearly showed the judge who tossed the case that Bologna's baton never struck the protester's head.
Instead, the video clearly showed that Bologna's baton struck a backpack on the protester's shoulder. According to department regulations, as an expert witness testified, that's a perfectly justifiable and permissible use of force to employ aganst a protester who was interfering with another officer making an arrest.
In his witch hunt against former Chief Inspector Carl Holmes, Krasner was also personally implicated for prosecutorial misconduct, because he failed to disclose a personal conflict of interest. The conflict: as a defense lawyer in 1996, Krasner represented Christopher Butler, the convicted robber of a 7-11 who pointed a gun at Holmes, and was found guilty of assaulting him. Butler got 6 to 12 years for the robbery.
Krasner also represented Butler in a civil rights suit against the city, claiming that after Butler robbed the 7-11 and pointed a gun at Holmes, Holmes used excessive force against Butler by shooting him seven times. The civil rights suit was settled in 1997 for $80,000. Because of his conflicts, Holmes's lawyer is asking a judge to disqualify Krasner as prosecutor in the case.
In another case recently documented on Big Trial, Krasner's office dropped the charges against Stefon Crawley, who told Officer Timothy Stephan, "You're gonna have to fucking kill me," before he got into a struggle with the officer, grabbed the cop's gun, and wound up on the receiving end when the cop shot him.
The D.A.'s office dropped the charges against Crawley because that same D.A.'s office hadn't cleared Officer Stephan in the shooting, so he couldn't testify against Crawley. Coincidence?
After the charges were dropped against him, Crawley, represented by Krasner's former defense firm, filed a civil rights case against the cop. Does anyone see a pattern here? As in follow the money?
Then, after 3 1/2 years, when the D.A.'s office finally got around to clearing Office Stephan in the shooting, nobody in the D.A.'s office could explain to Officer Stephan why they didn't rearrest and charge Crawely, a convicted armed robber on parole who was carrying a stolen Glock in his waistband, with aggravated assault on a cop, and three weapons charges.
Hey D.A. Krasner. While you're urging the police department to be more open and transparent, why don't you tell Officer Stephan, and the rest of us for that matter, if you gave immunity to a guy who tried to kill him?
Oh, and while you're talking about stonewalling, I can testify that you're an expert on that, as you have stonewalled every question I've ever asked you for the past 24 months.
The case of Officer Stephan was detailed in a civil rights case filed July 30th in U.S. District Court by former Philadelphia Police Detective Derrick Jacobs, who is acting as his own lawyer. The case lists as defendants the city of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Police Department, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, and several top police officials, in addition to District Attorney Larry Krasner and Assistant District Attorney Tracy Tripp.
In his complaint, Jacobs charged that the D.A.'s office under Krasner, as well as the police department's Internal Affairs Bureau, are "using complaint files to discredit officers to have cases dismissed in court."
In his lawsuit, Jacobs cited a case where information was turned over to a defense lawyer involving a cop's daughter who was repeatedly raped by a family member between the ages of 6 to 14.
When the cop found out, she filed charges against the family member, who was convicted and sent to jail. When he got out of jail, the family member filed a "frivolous abuse of power" complaint with the Police Department's Internal Affairs Division against the cop who put him away, Jacobs wrote.
The complaint was dismissed, but according to Jaccobs' lawsuit, either the police department's Internal Affairs Division or the district attorney's office "provided the sordid details" about the daughter's repeated rape to a defense attorney so he could argue that the cop had a habit of abusing her authority.
"When the officer, who along with their daughter, are now traumatized, complained, the DAO retaliated against the officer and placed the officer on the Do Not Testify list to punish them for complaining," Jacobs wrote in his lawsuit.
It's pretty rich that Larry Krasner would talk at a press conference about transparency, and credibility, and holding the police department accountable. Because right now, Krasner has on his staff as a senior advisor on policy, the Rev. Gregory Holston, a former lawyer who was disbarred after he forged a judge's signature on a divorce petition, and when the judge confronted him, he lied about it.
Krasner also has on his staff Assistant District Attorney Joseph Torda, who was publicly accused by his ex-girlfriend, a self-proclaimed "stripper, model & e-slut," of breaking into her apartment and stealing some homemade porn that ADA Torda allegedly co-starred in.
And finally, there's Assistant District Attorney Dana Bazelon, the pizza party planner for Cummings' going away bash. She's another top advisor to Krasner who was arrested for allegedly abandoning her four-year-old daughter in a locked car.
While Krasner was lecturing us about transparency, integrity and trust, maybe he could divulge how much former prosecutor Adan Foss got paid for training Krasner's staff for nine weeks in 2018.
That's the same Adam Foss who's currently the subject of a criminal investigation in Boston after he was subsequently and publicly accused by several women of being a serial predator, and rapist who was knowingly spreading STDs.
When I asked Krasner in a right-to-know request how much Foss got paid, the DAO denied that request. So much for transparency.
We finally come to Problem No. 3 when it comes to public trust in the D.A.'s office -- namely, we also know we can't trust The Philadelphia Inquirer, this city's paper of record, to report honestly on Krasner.
The Inquirer has never informed the public about Jacobs' lawsuit, about Krasner's conflict of interest in the Carl Holmes case, or about the Rev. Holston being disbarred, or ADA Torda allegedly stealing his girlfriend's porn, or Adam Foss and his legal problems. The Inquirer also dishonestly reported the shooting incident involving Officer Stephan, who could have lost his life.
In the shooting involving Officer Stephan, Samantha Melamed of the Inquirer ridiculously slanted two stories in favor of Crawley, and against Officer Stephan. Melamed's stories were so slanted that not even Crawley agreed with her distorted version of the facts of the shooting, when he testified in a civil deposition.
When he testified, Crawley was no doubt hoping, thanks to the work of the D.A.'s office, that he will be rewarded with a big pay day after he violated parole, was carrying a stolen Glock, and tried to kill a cop.
Melamed is the most prominent, but one of many offenders at the Inquirer when it comes to pumping out propaganda for Krasner. The Inquirer's journalistic malpractice regarding the D.A. is so routine and shameful that on my own website, I have compiled a list of seven of the most egregious examples under the heading, "Krasner's faithful apologists -- The Philadelphia Inquirer."
More recent examples of the Inquirer's softball coverage of Krasner -- in the Inquirer's story about Krasner seeking a contempt order against the cops, a story that disappeared off the newspaper's website within 24 hours, the Inquirer downplayed the issue, in an early headline with a lame attempt at humor, as in, "You better learn to share! DA hits cops for not giving up misconduct data."
Another recent example of the softball treatment that the D.A. always gets from the Inquirer -- this pathetic story with the headline, "Larry Krasner finally discusses his infamous ponytail on NPR's 'Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me.'"
While the dead and wounded bodies are piling up in record numbers, way to hold that D.A. accountable! It's obvious that reporters at the Inquirer can't talk to our D.A. without first strapping on their kneepads.
Meanwhile, if you can't make Patricia Cummings' going-away party in person today, ADA Bazelon will send you a Zoom link.
But if you're coming to the party, Bazelon wrote, you can Venmo her a contribution. Or, for those who aren't "tech-savvy," Bazelon wrote, you can hand her "some germ-covered bills at the party."
Oops, in quoting that Bazelon email, I hope that today's festivities for ADA Cummings wasn't supposed to be a surprise party.
In any event, although the ADA whom the cops regarded as a witch for persecuting them may be dead, rest assured that as far as Larry Krasner is concerned, the witch hunt against the cops will go on without her.
