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| Jeff Lindy: The Left-Wing D.A.'s New Right Hand Man |
for BigTrial.net
After new District Attorney Larry Krasner got through cleaning house yesterday by firing 30 assistant district attorneys, there's nobody left to prosecute Msgr. William J. Lynn.
One of the ADAs whacked by Krasner was Patrick Blessington, the lead prosecutor on the Lynn case. Blessington was also the guy who attacked retired Detective Joe Walsh as a "rogue" cop, saying he wasn't authorized to interview more than 30 witnesses in the Billy Doe case.
Blessington had nonsensically claimed that Walsh had done the interviews on his own. That, of course, prompted laughs from Judge Ellen Ceisler. In the Philadelphia archdiocese sex abuse prosecutions, Walsh was the key witness who came forward to say that he believed Billy Doe was a liar, and that Doe, whose real name is Danny Gallagher, had admitted to Walsh that he just "made up stuff." The retired detective's testimony has already forced the D.A. to let Bernard Shero, a former Catholic schoolteacher convicted of raping Gallagher, out of jail nearly a dozen years early.
Walsh was going to be the defense's star witness if the D.A. proceeded with its announced plans to retry Msgr. Lynn on one count of endangering the welfare of children. But now it looks as though that retrial may never happen, because of some other moves Krasner made.
Also gone from the D.A.'s office are a couple of senior lawyers, Ronald Eisenberg and Hugh J. Burns Jr. Eisenberg was the longtime deputy D.A. in charge of the D.A.'s law division, which kept deciding to appeal the Lynn case, after the monsignor's conviction was twice overturned by the state Superior Court. Burns was the longtime chief of the appeals unit who kept arguing that the monsignor was a danger to society and belonged in jail.
Eisenberg is said to have already departed for the state attorney general's office; Burns was one of the ADAs fired by Krasner yesterday.
But Krasner made another recent personnel move that may have something to do with whether the D.A. decides to retry Lynn. Krasner hired Jeffrey M. Lindy to be his top deputy. Lindy, a criminal defense lawyer who's a former deputy D.A. in Brooklyn, N.Y., and a former assistant U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia, was one of four lawyers who defended Msgr. Lynn in his original 2012 trial where he was convicted on one count of child endangerment.
Lindy, of course, would have an ethical conflict in having anything to do with the retrial of his former client. But maybe he can venture an opinion to his new boss that the Billy Doe case was bogus from day one, a manufactured prosecution starring a fraudulent victim. And that continuing to beat this dead horse would be a waste of time.
Lynn has already served 33 months of his 36 month sentence, plus 18 months of house arrest, so it makes little sense for the D.A. to retry the case as the defendant has already done almost all of his time.
The former D.A. who announced that his office would appeal the Lynn case is now wearing a jumpsuit and sitting in a federal prison in Oklahoma, where he's doing a five-year stretch after pleading guilty to taking bribes.
With Rufus Seth Williams in jail, Pat Blessington looking for work, and Hugh Burns and Ron Eisenberg gone from the D.A.'s office, it's the perfect time for Progressive Larry Krasner to declare victory in the Lynn case and move on.
A partial list of dispatched ADAs:
1. Tom Lipscomb
2. Andrew Notaristefano
3. Carlos Vega
4. Mike Barry
5 Jason Kleinman
6. Stacey Hughes
7. Jim Carpenter
8. Joe Whitehead
9. Laurie Moore
10. Nicole Pedecino
11. Jenn Hoffman
12. Mark Gilson
13. Yvonne Ruiz
14. Michelle Seidner
15. Namratha Ravikant
16. John Delaney
17. Jan McDermott
18. Salina Jones
19. Derek Riker
20. Lauren Realberg
21. Melissa Francis
22. Bridget Kirn
23. Gwen Chudic
24. Pat Blessington
25. Hugh Burns
26. B.J. Graham-Rubin
27. Mark Costanzo
28. Carolyn Keating-McGlynn
Ralph,
ReplyDeleteNumbers 24 and 29 on your list appear to be duplicates. Also, my source says Ed Cameron, ADA-6, has left. Or, maybe he just came to the office and moved a lot of boxes in front of the TV cameras.
City and State PA's list includes the following in addition to yours:
Bryan Hughes ADA-1
Brian Varallo ADA-4
Gregg Rowe ADA-6
Cari Mahler ADA-3
Laquan Lightfoot ADA-1
This would appear to bring the total to 34, not the 31 published, so something is off and some of these folks may have left on their own, for example. Or maybe some didn’t show up yesterday.
You will note that almost every person on the list that has made the news, made that news with an overzealous prosecution of some kind: the Lynn case, a forfeiture case, a decades-old murder case, and a DNA-mixup case. Some of these folks insisted on the death penalty for weak cases or LWOP for a juvenile or mentally ill person.
For better or worse, Krasner did exactly what he said he would. These weren't personal vendettas - he just got rid of prosecutors that had crossed a line.
To his credit, Krasner had either been keeping a list for the last ten years, or he had one hell of a research team to be able to get these names together in 3 days.
You're right about mentioning that one ADA twice. I will try to get confirmation on the rest of those names.
DeleteLooks like he kept interim DA Hodges around. Only a certifiable idiot would retry the Lynn case.
ReplyDeleteBryan Hughes was not dismissed.
ReplyDeleteThanks Anon. City and State was the source of that information and is now reporting a correction. As usual, these details get mangled.
DeleteHow unusual are these dismissals, do they usually happened with a change of district attorney ? If not why are they different ?
ReplyDeleteRendell and Abraham both dismissed more than 25% but allowed some to re-apply. Shapiro let 60 go from a staff about the same size. Trump also fired many of the AUSA's, the federal equivalent of ADA's.
DeleteKrasner’s 11% is nothing by comparison.
This departing crew is especially vocal and appears to still be coming to grips with Krasner’s record 150,000 vote margin.
Some of the attorney's you list were not fired. Ed Cameron was not fired although he was on hand to help friends who were fired move some personal items from their offices. Pat Blessington was not fired but was also on hand to assist friends in their time of need. Neither was Jan McDermott fired. You have not listed some of the personnel names who were terminated who were considered support staff but non-attorney's. The majority of your list is accurate but not 100%.
ReplyDeleteMy sources say Blessington was fired. His firing was also reported by WHYY and Philly Weekly.
DeleteI think your source is wrong unless the DA has come out with an addendum to the original list. Pat Blessington's name was absolutely not on the original list. I have not tried to confirm it but I do not believe that Blessington was fired.
ReplyDeleteI suspect there are different versions of the list, with one revision reflecting only those that were actually brought in Friday. The variance probably stems from the inability for some of them to come in on Friday, in which case they would technically still be employees.
DeleteTo think that Blessington, of all people, would survive the first round is ridiculous. To borrow a right-wing term, there is probably something of a "deep state" at the DAO spreading misinformation.
blessington should be on the top of that list, hopefully Ralph's info is correct,
ReplyDeletehe should be fired if for nothing more than trying to pursuade Judge Ceisler in court this past year in Bernard Shero's retrial hearing that Detective Joe Walsh was investigating and interviewing witnesses including the star witness Danny Gallagher on his own, branding Joe Walsh as nothing but a rogue cop. Uncontrolled by Sorenson and the other group of conniving DA's
I was there in that courtroom and couldn't believe that Blessington was trying to con Judge Ceisler with that totally false accusation against this well respected retired Detective Joe Walsh, a remark that immediately brought an incredulous response from Ceisler ...other remarks were also made that same day by Judge Ceisler about the unusual disappearance of Danny Gallagher's brother, James Gallagher Jr, on the eve of the trial, he successfully dodged the defense attorney's supoena sent to his parents home to come into court in the Shero/Engelhardt trial, never showed his face ever ....James Gallagher Jr would have had to perjure himself in that courtroom as there was a written statement from him that danny actually changed in high school after being introduced to dope, etc...would have been damaging to that lying scumbag brother of his, danny gallagher...
and weeks later, the DA's office made a deal with the new defense attorney's for Shero to get his release "11 1/2 years early" so that any further scrutiny of this case would disappear
Blessington should have been fired long ago, another lying hack of a DA who helped put innocent men in prison at the direction of our corrupt, EX-DA and current federal prison immate, Seth Williams....5 years isn't nearly enough time to serve for the pain and suffering endured by the innocent men and their families in the fabricated Archdiocese trial involving danny gallagher.....historic prosecution my ass
also glad to see that fathead appeals ADA got fired, one named Hugh Burns.....another lackey of Seth Williams....
A couple of knowledgable sources continue to say that Blessington was on the list, but until they release it, I can't confirm it.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be surprised if they retry Lynn. Any new prosecutor can get up to speed on the case. The publicity the case will generate could be too tempting for the DA's office to pass up.
ReplyDeletehow did all the publicity generated by this wrongful,corrupt "historic prosecution" ultimately benefit Seth Williams? oh, that's right .....he's now incarcerated, on the guest list of the federal government.....
DeleteLarry should punt this case right out of his office, before there is any further scrutiny of how those ADA's deliberately withheld evidence to wrongly convict those men....Krasner's new right hand man, Jeffrey Lindy might have some input into this decision, hopefully, they make the correct one and leave Fr Lynn to live the rest of his life in peace....and save the taxpayers some money in the process...
Williams was convicted of taking bribes. Good publicity from the Lynn case couldn't save him from that.
DeleteThere is currently a huge public interest in punishing anyone accused of a sex crime, especially crimes against children. Just look at all the publicity about sex abuse by Hollywood elites and politicians. There is also great public outrage that the bigwigs in the Catholic Church escaped prosecution despite aiding and abetting pedophile priests for decades.
Williams got a lot of favorable publicity from convicting Lynn, who was the highest ranking US clergyman ever convicted. Had he not committed crimes himself, the fame Williams got from the Lynn conviction may have carried Williams into a higher office, such as PA Attorney General.
Hey, at least the feds got something right this time on Seth Williams conviction....the man was nothing but a thief, one who would stoop to any lengths to line his pockets, including monies earmarked for his own mother's nursing home expenses...
Deleteand your right Tim Berton, he might have gone onto higher office but for his greed.....
in my opinion, it wouldn't be a stretch for he and his staff to help fabricate a story of abuse of danny gallagher in order to move on up the food chain...
Karma however is a bitch though.......it can bite you in the ass...
I am darn near positive that Pat Blessington remains an ADA in the Philly DA Office. As to the above poster who commented that Hugh Burns is a lackey of Seth Williams, that is not accurate either. Hugh was definitely in the office under Lynn Abraham if not brought in during the Ed Rendell administration. Actually, Hugh has been hailed in his heroic efforts to ensure that Mumia-Abu-Jamal never won any of his numerous appeals. I wonder if it was Hugh's work in the Jamal case that brought forth his demise from this new administration? I do concur that Joe Walsh is an extraordinarily talented detective and the fact that Mr. Shero and Msgr. Lynn and Fr. Englehart were convicted without Detective Walsh's investigation results being so much as presented in court is an outrageous violation of the rule of law. I am grateful for this site's doggedness in covering this travesty of justice. I just wanted to assist this site in maintaining its record for accurate reporting.
ReplyDelete