City Solicitor Seeks Gag Order To Continue PPD Cover Up

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

The city solicitor's office is seeking a protective order from a federal judge that's the equivalent of a gag order to prevent more depositions like the one Dennis Wilson just gave from being excerpted on bigtrial.net.

In a deposition in an ongoing federal case in U.S. District Court, Derrick Jacobs v. City of Philadelphia et al, former deputy police commissioner Wilson revealed that he took a voluntary demotion and pay cut over the 2020 decision to drop tear gas on protesters on the Vine Street Expressway because "the heat . . . got too much for the city."

While Wilson claimed under duress at a 2020 press conference that the decision to deploy tear gas during the George Floyd riots was made by him and him alone, in his April 4th deposition Wilson finally admitted that "Everyone [in the police department] knew that decision was going to be made." 

Everybody, Wilson explained, included Police Commissioner Outlaw, whom Wilson had just talked to on a cell phone "immediately before" the tear gas was deployed. 

On Tuesday, the city solicitor's office jumped into the fray, asking a judge to make sure that a subsequent deposition given in the same lawsuit by Deputy Police Commissioner Christine Coulter is not made public on bigtrial.net. 

During her deposition, Coulter was asked some pointed questions about the indictment of former Staff Inspector Joseph Bologna, and the city obviously doesn't want the public to hear what Coulter had to say about that subject.

In a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Joel Slomsky, Assistant City Solicitor Michael Sheehan said the city became aware that "excerpts from the deposition of Defendant Dennis Wilson were published on the website BigTrial.net."

Here's what the rest of the letter had to say:

Plaintiff Derrick Jacobs has a preexisting relationship with the website which often quotes him directly or includes information directly obtained through him regarding Philadelphia Police Department investigations, actions, and litigation.

The website is read by many within the Philadelphia Police Department and the post containing testimony from Chief Inspector Dennis Wilson contains statements are arrange[d] so as to harass, annoy and/or intimidate him in this litigation.

The deposition of Deputy Commissioner Christine Coulter was taken on April 28, 2022, and the transcript will likely be available within the next week. It is assumed that excerpts from Deputy Coulter's deposition will also make their way onto this website, exposing her to harassment and undue distress.

To prevent further dissemination of any deposition testimony, Defendants respectfully request that the Court review the Motion for a Protective Order filed today and take whatever action is necessary to prevent further actions by Plaintiff which may exert undue influence on the named Defendants or any witnesses who may be called to testify at trial.

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

Very truly yours,

Michael J. Sheehan, Esq.

Assistant City Solicitor

Anybody can make accusations, including a city solicitor.

In emails yesterday, I asked both Sheehan and his boss, City Solicitor Diana Cortes, what evidence  they had to prove that the deposition excerpts published on big trial.net were allegedly used to "harass, annoy and/or intimidate" former deputy police commissioner Wilson.

I also asked Sheehan and Cortes what evidence they had to prove that any future deposition excerpts would be used on bigtrial.net to expose Deputy Police Commissioner Coulter to "harassment and undue distress."

Neither Sheehan nor Cortes had any response, possibly because they have no such evidence.

A hearing on the motion is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. May 9th in Courtroom 13A of the U.S. Courthouse at 6th and Market, at which both sides are required to attend.

In her deposition, Coulter was asked by former homicide detective Jacobs, who is acting as his own lawyer, about the firing and indictment of former staff inspector Bologna. 

District Attorney Larry Krasner accused Bologna of striking a protester in the head with his baton during the George Floyd riots, a wound that allegedly required 10 staples and 10 sutures to close.

Coulter, however, had a different take on Bologna's clash with protester Evan Gorski.

According to Coulter, Bologna was the victim of an assault and robbery, as in the theft of his extendable metal baton known as an ASP by Gorski, who was seen on video grabbing Bologna's baton and throwing it to other protesters.

During her deposition, Coulter also expressed her opinion that Gorski was guilty of interfering with an officer who was attempting to make an arrest.

Krasner's theory of the crime allegedly committed by Bologna was throughly refuted in court.

In the Jan. 15, 2021 preliminary hearing before Judge Henry Lewandowski, III, Bologna's defense lawyers played a slow-motion video of the alleged crime, a video subsequently broken down frame by frame. 

"The video presented by the defense clearly showed that the ASP deployed by Staff Inspector Bologna never came into contact with the complainant’s head but in fact landed on a backpack being carried by the complainant on his shoulder," Bologna's lawyers wrote in a motion to the judge. 

At the preliminary hearing before Judge Lewandowski, the defense called as a witness Sgt. Kenneth Gill, the lead use of force instructor for the Philadelphia Police Department. 

Gill testified under oath that the use of force displayed by Staff Inspector Bologna in the video was “absolutely justified” under the Philadelphia Use of Force Directives, specifically Section 10.123, which permits the use of the ASP if a person is grabbing a police officer.

In her deposition, Coulter stated that Bologna was following proper procedures, did nothing wrong, and should have never been arrested, indicted or fired.

This was the exact same conclusion that Judge Lewandowski came to. 

But it wasn't good enough for Krasner, who promptly went out and found a more pliable rookie judge, Crystal Bryant-Powell, to agree with his motion to refile charges against Bologna.

The depositions of Wilson and Coulter were made in federal court, where former homicide detective Jacobs is suing the city and the Philadelphia D.A.'s office. In the lawsuit, Jacobs charged that District Attorney Krasner initiated a grand jury investigation against him after Jacobs exposed what he contended was a corrupt prosecution of former Police Officer Ryan Pownall.

Krasner indicted Pownall for murder, after an internal investigation that Jacobs was involved in cleared Pownall in a white-on-black officer-involved police shooting. Jacobs, who is black, alleged that he was threatened with arrest and indictment by the D.A.'s office when he wouldn't change his story to accommodate Krasner's new story line that Pownall was a racist murderer.

In his lawsuit, Jacobs charges that he was forced to resign because the department was planning to fire him for speaking out against Krasner. 

Why is the city seeking the equivalent of a gag order in the civil case filed by Jacobs?

There's a simple explanation -- Instead of enforcing the law, Larry Krasner, former career defense lawyer, is using his office as D.A. as a platform to wage a vendetta against cops. It's a vengeful crusade where evidence doesn't matter, and Krasner the ideologue only sees what he wants to see. 

And why is Krasner getting away with this?

Because the mayor and his hand-picked police commissioner, and now the city solicitor, are too weak and cowardly to stand up to him.

Of course it helps the cause of censorship that every day the local media, led by the dedicated progressive Democratic apologists at The Philadelphia Inquirer, do the dirty work of Kenney, Krasner and Outlaw for them, by pretending all of this isn't news.

But the facts stubbornly remain the facts.

Bologna shouldn't have been indicted, arrested or fired.

Similarly, former SWAT team member Richard Nicoletti shouldn't have been indicted, arrested or fired for spraying a protester in the face with pepper spray.

Why? Because at the time, Nicoletti, like Bologna, was following standard department procedures and Outlaw's orders to clear the highway of protesters, who were blocking traffic during rush hour.

Jacobs also shouldn't have been forced to resign because he wouldn't change his testimony under oath to suit Larry Krasner's perverted sense of justice in wanting to indict a white cop for murder, for shooting a black man, no matter what the evidence said.

And Dennis Wilson shouldn't have been compelled to lie at a press conference, and take a voluntary demotion and a $26,000 a year pay cut because Outlaw and Kenney needed a scapegoat.

Or because Larry Krasner had threatened to arrest Wilson, and if convicted, Wilson stood to lose both his pension and a DROP bonus of some $800,000.

As former detective Jacobs defiantly declared on a  Search Warrant podcast yesterday, "Larry Krasner is running a criminal enterprise. He is a clear and present danger."

Why is the city seeking a gag over against him, Jacobs was asked on that same podcast.

"Because they're scared of the truth," Jacobs said. "They don't want their lies to get uncovered."