2 Judges Call Out D.A. For Lack Of Candor; Inky Covers For Krasner

Judge Goldberg

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

After he held an evidentiary hearing and heard testimony from several witnesses, a federal judge concluded that D.A. Larry Krasner's prosecutors had been "less than candid with this court."

The prosecutors were seeking to get Robert Wharton, convicted in 1984 of brutally murdering a husband and wife, off death row.

In court, the prosecutors argued that Wharton had rehabilitated himself in prison. The prosecutors also implied that they had contacted the murdered couple's next-of-kin, and that they had no objection to sparing Wharton the death penalty.

After he conducted an evidentiary hearing, however, the judge discovered that both claims by the D.A.'s office simply weren't true.

In a 40-page memorandum opinion issued May 11th, U.S. District Court Judge Mitchell Goldberg found that the prosecutors didn't tell His Honor about a 1986 escape attempt by the supposedly reformed Wharton. The convicted killer slipped out of his handcuffs, shoved a sheriff's deputy aside and bolted from a courtroom, but he wound up getting shot twice by a sheriff's deputy as he attempted to flee City Hall.

The judge also found that the prosecutors didn't tell him about the six times that Wharton had been disciplined in prison, including that time when the inmate was caught with two pieces of a metal antenna that had been fashioned into a key to unlock handcuffs.

The judge also found that the prosecutors didn't disclose to the judge that they failed to contact the murder victims' only child, a daughter who, as an infant was left for dead by the same convicted killer who murdered her parents.

If you read the record in this case, as laid out by the judge in his 40-page memorandum opinion, on both counts, the D.A.'s office is guilty as charged. But when the city's paper of record wrote the story, rather than objectively report the facts, which would have cast Krasner's office in a negative light, the partisan Inquirer took Krasner's side and attacked the judge!

Slanting The News

That's what happened on May 19th when Chris Palmer of The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote an alleged news story about Judge Goldberg's formal admonishment of the D.A.'s office for being "less than candid with this court."

Amazingly, in that same slanted news story, Palmer and the Inquirer gave Krasner another pass in a dispute with a second judge. 

In Common Pleas Court, Judge Scott DiClaudio had questioned whether Krasner's prosecutors were being less than candid with him -- does that sound familiar? -- over an alleged conflict of interest that involved D.A. Krasner's personal finances. 

In Judge DiClaudio's courtroom, the D.A.'s office was cooperating with a motion by a federal public defender to get a new trial for Lavar Brown, who was previously convicted of two murders, on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct. 

Two defense lawyers in that orginal case, however, one of whom was also a key witness in the appeal claiming prosecutorial misconduct, were both former law partners of Krasner's. So the potential conflict of interest was, did Krasner as D.A. still have a financial relationship with his two former law partners?

In court, four of Krasner's prosecutors told Judge DiClaudio that since he became D.A., Krasner had received no income from either of his two former law partners. 

But once again, a judge discovered that another claim in court by the D.A.'s prosecutors wasn't true.

A subsequent brief in the case, filed on behalf of the next of kin of Brown's two murder victims, revealed that Krasner's own personal finance disclosure forms stated that as D.A., Krasner did receive income from his two former law partners.

The contradictory evidence contained in the D.A.'s own financial disclosure forms was an incovenient fact that the Inquirer neglected to tell its readers.

In Judge DiClaudio's courtroom, the only thing for sure was that somebody in the D.A.'s office was lying, but don't expect the Inquirer to ever tell you about it.

That's because instead of reporting the news, the progressive Inquirer is too busy covering for Krasner, and propagandizing on behalf of his progressive "reforms" of the criminal justice system.

Crimes Against Journalism

Here's the headline and sub-head of the slanted Inquirer news story: 

Two judges have sparred with the Philly DA’s office recently over questions about old murder convictions.

The developments — which prosecutors dispute — have offered a degree of pushback as DA Larry Krasner’s office has sought to free one man from death row and overturn another man’s murder conviction.

Here's the lede of the story:

Judges in state and federal courts in recent weeks have raised questions about whether prosecutors under District Attorney Larry Krasner included incomplete or even misleading information in court documents seeking to remove one man from death row and overturn another man’s murder conviction.

All of this is purposely misleading on the part of the Inquirer.

What transpired between Judge Goldberg and the D.A.'s office, as the Inquirer surely knows, wasn't sparring. In court, judges and prosecutors aren't equals. In court, prosecutors and defense lawyers are equals. In court, the judges rule over both of them.

Also, the judges involved in both cases didn't merely just raise questions about whether the prosecutors gave them "incomplete or misleading information." In both cases, both judges ultimately got answers to their questions, answers that proved that the D.A.'s office was lying.

In paragraphs two and three, the tone of the Inquirer story changes from a news story to an editorial designed to defend Krasner, cast shade on the judges, and tell readers there's nothing to see here.

The developments — which prosecutors dispute — have offered a degree of pushback to the post-conviction work of Krasner’s office, one of the most aggressive offices in the county in seeking to overturn cases it has viewed as flawed or marred by misconduct.

Jane Roh, spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office, defended the office’s conduct in each of the two recent cases. And though Krasner did not comment, he has frequently touted the 28 exonerations his office has helped secure as a signature achievement — while casting judicial resistance as an unsurprising byproduct of dealing with those invested in the status quo.

What a bunch of propaganda that is. 

In the Inquirer story, the paper also hyperlinked the term "judicial resistance" to a previous Inquirer story about another case last year where Judge Goldberg had to admonish the D.A.'s office for a lack of candor.

So, in the Inquirer's view, a judge who twice in two years had to admonish the D.A.'s office for not being honest with him, as required by law, is guilty of judicial resistance, as well as being a possibly corrupt enemy of criminal justice reform.

In the ninth paragraph, the newspaper quotes Roh as saying, “We categorically reject any implication that we were anything less than candid with the court."

If you're scoring at home, that's three denials that the Inky printed in the top of their story in response to charges from two judges that the D.A.'s office being less than candid with them, charges that a review of the records shows to be factually correct.

Judge Goldberg's Findings

In his memorandum opinion, Judge Goldberg described how Robert Wharton and Eric Mason, his co-defendant, broke into the home of Bradley and Ferne Hart and ransacked it, stealing "silverware, cameras, jewelry, and the victims’ wallets." 

The judge described how Wharton strangled Ferne Hart with "one of her husband’s ties, then filled the bathtub and forced her head under water."

Next, the judge described how Mason "forced Bradley Hart to lie on the floor of the basement with his face in a shallow pan of water. He [Mason] then stood on Bradley’s back and pulled the cords around his neck, strangling him to death."

Finally, the judge described how Wharton and Mason stole the baby's crib, turned off the heat in the house, and drove off in Bradley Hart's car with a load of stolen valuables, "leaving seven-month-old Lisa, in the dead of winter, with her dead parents."

"Lisa was found two days later suffering from severe dehydration, and on the way to the hospital, suffered respiratory arrest, but survived," the judge wrote.

In his memorandum and opinion, the judge concluded that on "two critical issues in this case, it appears that the District Attorney was less than candid with this Court."

"The first issue pertains to facts known to the District Attorney, but withheld, regarding Wharton’s premeditated escape from a Philadelphia courtroom," the judge wrote. "This escape was not disclosed to me when the District Attorney requested that I blindly vacate Wharton’s death sentence on the grounds that his trial counsel had ineffectively failed to offer positive prison adjustment evidence."

The attempted escape, the judge wrote, was only brought to his attention after he appointed the Attorney General’s office to report to the judge the facts of the case in a friend of the court brief; facts that the D.A.'s office had repeatedly declined to share with the judge.

"The second possible instance of lack of candor involves the District Attorney’s representation to me that in reaching its decision to concede the death penalty, and asking that I vacate Wharton’s death sentence, the District Attorney had consulted with the victims’ family," the judge wrote.

"Yet the fully developed record before me reflects that no communication occurred between the District Attorney and the only surviving victim, Lisa Hart-Newman, and that minimal and woefully deficient communication took place with the siblings of the deceased, Bradley and Ferne Hart."

The judge then quoted the rules of professional conduct that says "an attorney, as an officer of the Court, has an overarching duty of candor to the Court."

"That duty requires that a 'lawyer shall not knowingly ... make a false statement of material fact or law to a tribunal or fail to correct a false statement of material fact or law previously made to the tribunal by the lawyer,' " the judge wrote.

"Lisa Hart-Newman, now age thirty-seven, the infant left to die by Wharton, is a surviving victim but was never contacted by the District Attorney," the judge wrote. "In her June 6, 2019 letter to this Court, Lisa Hart-Newman stated that she was 'extremely disappointed to learn of the District Attorney’s stance [to seek to vacate the death penalty] and very troubled that the District Attorney implied that the family approved of his viewpoint.'"

Here's what Lisa Hart-Newman had to say about the conduct of the D.A.'s office, comments that the Inquirer didn't deem newsworthy:

"At no point was I contacted by the District Attorney or anyone in his office to ascertain what my views are. Seeing as I was also a victim in this tragedy, my opinion should have been sought and should carry weight. At seven months old, after my parents had been murdered, I was left in a house where the heat had been intentionally turned off in hopes that I would die. I am the sole survivor of this tragedy and I am alive despite his efforts."

During a hearing before the judge, Lisa Hart-Newman testified that when she did finally find out about what the D.A.'s office was up to, namely trying to get the murderer of her parents off death row,  “It was as though, well, it’s already done, and there’s nothing you can do about it . . . you don’t matter, essentially.” 

An Affidavit From A Former Krasner ADA Who Appears To Be In Deep Shit

In a May 21st affidavit, Max Kaufman, a former assistant district attorney in the D.A's office from May 2003 until February of this year, wrote that he was told by his superiors that the D.A.'s Capital Case Review Committee had decided to concede to a motion from defense lawyers seeking to get Robert Wharton off death row.

Although it supposedly was the committee that made the decision, it was Kaufman who was asked by his bosses to write and file a "notice of concession" to the defense request, as well as other documents in the case, presumably because Kaufman was a yes-man who asked few questions. 

For the D.A.'s office and Kaufman, now a clerk to state Supreme Court Justice Kevin Dougherty, Kaufman's affidavit in the Wharton case, which somehow escaped the attention of ace Inky reporter Palmer, opens up several problems. 

When a lawyer signs his name to a filing, the lawyer is attesting to the accuracy and veracity of the statements contained in that filing. In Kaufman's affidavit, however, the former ADA made a series of damning admissions that revealed he wrote the notice of concession without having any idea of whether the facts contained in it were true.

In his affidavit, Kaufman wrote that he was not a member of the Capital Case Review Committee, nor did he know who the members were, "or of how precisely it operated."

Similarly, "I had no involvement with notifying the victims' family," Kaufman wrote. And when he wrote the notice of concession, "I was not personally aware of Wharton's attempted escape in 1986," he admitted. Nor was he aware, Kaufman admits in his affidavit, of the six times that Wharton was charged in prison for misconduct.

In the affidavit, Kaufman wrote that the notice of concession did not intend to imply that the "victims' family agreed with the decision" of the D.A's office to go along with the defense request to get Wharton off death row.

In his affidavit, Kaufman wrote that he now realizes that the "admittedly vague" language in his notice of concession about "communication with the victims' family" would lead someone to erroneously conclude that the victims' family agreed with the D.A.'s decision to not contest the defense motion to get Wharton off death row.

"Please know that this was certainly not my intention, and I apologize to the court for the lack of clarity," Kaufman wrote.

When Kaufman wrote his misleading notice of concession, which cited previous "communication with the victims' family," it did not state or was not intended to imply "that every member of the victims' family had been contacted by the DAO," Kaufman stated in his affidavit.

By his own admissions in his affidavit, Kaufman has opened himself up to potential disciplinary action, as well as a criminal investigation, because false swearing is a second-degree misdemeanor. 

In his affidavit, Kaufman said that he subsequently sought and received permission from his supervisors to stop working on the Wharton case. 

Why?

"Because it seemed apparent the case was evolving from a perfunctory concession of relief to active litigation on Wharton's behalf," Kaufman wrote.

There you have it folks, confirmation from inside the belly of the beast that in Larry Krasner's D.A.'s office, the paramount concern is the welfare of criminals, especially those on death row. 

As for crime victims, as Lisa Hart-Newman will tell you, Krasner doesn't give a damn about them. 

Fallout For A Fall Guy

Judge Goldberg has set a June 10th hearing at 9:30 a.m. where he's summoned officials from the D.A.'s office to explain their lack of candor to the judge.

In a May 24th motion, Kaufman's former supervisors in the D.A.'s office, Paul George and Nancy Winkelman, sought to excuse fomer ADA Kaufman from testifying at that hearing because, the supervisors wrote, Kaufman, the author of the notice of concession, "was not part of the decision-making process that led to the concession."

But on May 26th, Judge Goldberg denied that motion, writing, "Because Mr. Kaufman submitted and signed the Notice of Concession of Penalty Relief, Notice of Proposed Order, and a Brief purporting to explain the basis for the concession, and did so acting as a Supervisor for the District Attorney’s Office, he shall be present at the hearing."

As previously mentioned, this is the second time in two years that Judge Goldberg has had to formally admonish the D.A.'s office for a lack of candor.

On Feb. 11, 2021, Judge Goldberg issued a 23-page "memorandum opinion" that constituted a formal admonishment of then ADA Patricia Cummings for violating her "duty of candor" to the court. 

While Cummings was arguing an appeal in federal court, Judge Goldberg wrote, she should have informed His Honor that she had parallel litigation going in state court in her crusade to get Antonio Martinez out of jail, who was serving a life sentence after being convicted of a 1985 double homicide.

“While I will not impose sanctions, an admonishment of the District Attorney, as set forth in this Opinion, is appropriate,” Judge Goldberg wrote. 

The judge said he would henceforth require the Philadelphia DA to submit status reports on future cases, adding, “I typically do not impose requirements of this nature on counsel, but such oversight of the District Attorney is now unfortunately warranted.”

Since a previous judicial admonishment, however, didn't change the behavior of the D.A.'s office, perhaps this time around, Judge Goldberg will consider imposing sanctions. 

If the judge does impose sanctions, will Chris Palmer and the Inquirer report it as more "sparring?"

The Dispute Over The D.A.'s Personal Finances

The D.A.'s office told Judge DiClaudio that it believed that Lavar Brown deserved a new trial due to prosecutorial misconduct. Brown had been convicted of two murders, including participating in the 2003 robbery and fatal shooting of a North Philadelphia Rite Aid manager.

But there was a potential conflict of interest, because two defense lawyers involved in the original case, one of whom subsequently became the key witness in the appeal for a new trial based on prosecutorial misconduct, were both former law partners of Krasner's. 

In court on Jan. 25th, Judge DiClaudio stated, “If Mr. Krasner said, no, I never received a dime and he puts that in writing, that would probably be enough for me. But I think we need the answer.”

The judge then postponed a hearing on the alleged conflict of interest to give the D.A.'s office time to provide him with a definitive answer on whether the D.A. had an ongoing financial relationship with the two defense lawyers who subsequently became former law partners of Krasner's.

From the tone of his remarks in court, the judge apparently was hoping to hear directly from Krasner about the alleged conflict of interest. But that's not what happened.

In an April 5th response brief signed by four prosecutors, the D.A.'s office denied the allegation of a conflict of interest, without any definitive answer from Krasner. 

In the brief, the D.A.'s office stated that "D.A. Krasner and Mr. Long severed their partnership in June 2017 after the primary election. While D.A. Krasner received his portion of his contingency fee for a civil verdict that he worked on and which was rendered prior to June 2017, but not paid by defendant until later, he has received no remuneration from Mr. Long after taking his office."

"After D.A. Krasner and Mr. Long severed their partnership, D.A. Krasner took his remaining practice" to the firm of Greenblatt, Pierce, Engel, Funt & Flores LLC, where Krasner was a partner with Funt.

"D.A. Krasner left Greenblatt in December 2017, and had no further financial dealings with Greenblatt after December 2017," the D.A.'s brief states. The D,A.'s response brief then stated that the "unsupported allegation of a conflict of interest due to ongoing payments is frivolous." 

The response brief was signed by ADAs Thomas Gaeta and David Napiorski, as well as Paul George, assistant supervisor of the D.A.'s law division, and Michael Garmisa, assistant supervisor of the D.A.'s conviction integrity unit. 

Attached to the response brief were three affidavits, from Lloyd Long, James Funt, as well as Ronald Greenblatt, all declaring that since Krasner became D.A., he has not received any income from any of their law firms. 

Nowhere in the D.A.'s response brief, signed by four of Krasner's assistant prosecutors, however, is there any affidavit or any statement from Larry Krasner testifying about the alleged conflict of interest, involving his own personal finances.

But then on April 6th, Lou Tumolo, an attorney for the next of kin of the two murder victims, filed a brief saying that Krasner's own financial disclosure forms revealed that Krasner's prosecutors weren't telling the truth about the D.A.'s own personal finances.

The D.A.’s financial disclosure form filed in 2019 showed that during his first year in office, 2018, Krasner received income from two law firms that employed Lloyd Long and Jamie Funt. 

In two subsequent financial disclosure forms filed for 2019 and 2020, Krasner stated that he had a "financial interest" in the Krasner & Long firm.

In the Lavar Brown case, Long defended Brown. Funt represented a witness in the case, but he subsequently became the key witness in the appeal who was alleging prosecutorial misconduct. In going along with the request for a new trial, the D.A.'s office also took Funt's word about the allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, because they didn't even bother to interview the original prosecutors in the case to see if what Funt had to say about them was true.

In the Inquirer story written by Palmer, Jane Roh, Krasner's spokesperson, said that any allegations of improper financial dealings “are untrue” and that payments to Krasner were properly disclosed. 

The story went on to quote Roh as saying Krasner in 2018, however, "received a deferred fee from a case he and a partner had handled years before Krasner took office."

"In another instance," the Inquirer quotes Roh as saying, "a former law partner wrote Krasner a final check on Dec. 30, 2017, but it wasn’t deposited until the next business day."

What Roh had to say about Krasner referring a deferred fee and a final check, both in 2018, the year he became D.A., appears to contradict what Krasner's prosecutors said in court about Krasner as D.A. not taking any money from either former law partner.

The Inquirer, of course, after catching Roh in the contradiction, did not call her on it. Why make the D.A. look bad, right?

Roh, as well as Krasner, as they have done for nearly three years now, did not respond to a request for comment. 

This case in Judge DiClaudio's courtroom contains a few subplots. Krasner as D.A. previously waged a petty feud against DiClaudio that got the judge transferred out of his courtroom.

Tumolo is a former assistant district attorney who left the office after working under Krasner on the high-profile murder of Sean Schellinger in Rittenhouse Square. In that crime, Krasner conspired behind the scenes to tank the case and acquit accused killer Michael White.

Regarding the D.A.'s office's lack of candor in dealing with Judge DiClaudio and Judge Goldberg, both matters have been referred for investigation to the Disciplinary Board of the state Supreme Court.

A Habitual Liar And A Dishonest Newspaper

With apologies to Judge Goldberg and Judge DiClaudio, accusing Larry Krasner of a lack of candor is a legal euphemism that amounts to an understatement. As repeatedly documented by Big Trial, it's more accurate to describe the "reform" D.A. of Philadelphia as a habitual liar who's dishonest down to his core.

There are so many examples of this.

Such as at a 2020 press conference, D.A., when Krasner served up BS and misleading stats to con the public about how his permissive policies had fueled out-of-control gun violence.

And then on the campaign trail in his bid for reelection last year, Krasner defended his woeful record on crimefighting by repeatedly citing a fatally flawed academic survey, widely reported in the media, that claimed Philadelphia's increase in the annual murder rate ranked only 23rd out of 34 nationally surveyed cities.

But the study not only got the increase in Philly's murder rate wrong, but also the increases in murder rates in a total of 30 of the 34 surveyed cities. To make matters worse, the fatally flawed study was an inside job funded by a billionaire who has an existing partnership with Krasner to publish the D.A.'s rose-colored Public Data Dashboard.

Here's a few more examples of Larry Krasner being a habitual liar:

Last October, Krasner conned the City Council with deceptive rhetoric and bogus stats to cover up the horrendous record of his office when it comes to prosecuting gun crimes.

In November, Krasner appeared in a national forum before the Federalist Society in Washington D.C., where the D.A. made provably false claims about his campaign finances, as well as provably false claims about his record as a crimefighter.

In December, days before the city would set an all-time record for murders last year, with 562, the D.A. famously stated at a press conference, “We don’t have a crisis of lawlessness, we don’t have a crisis of crime, we don’t have a crisis of violence.”

On top of all that, this is the same D.A. who habitually doesn't pay his taxes and has repeatedly and brazenly violated the city's campaign finance laws.

Like D.A. Krasner, the Inquirer also has a proven track record.

On ralphcipriano.com, I have taken the Inquirer to task as Krasner's "faithful apologists" nine previous times when I caught them either slanting the news, or sanitizing the news, or just plain ignoring the news, all to cover for Larry Krasner.

In writing this story, I sought comment from both reporter Chris Palmer and Gabriel Escobar, the editor of the newspaper, but neither bothered to reply. 

So we have a habitual liar as D.A. and a newspaper of record that when it comes to covering Krasner, has proven to be habitually dishonest. It's a bad combination that has wreaked havoc on the city of Philadelphia.

Together, Krasner and the Inquirer, partners in progressivism, are responsible for a record number of murders, shootings, and carjackings. They're also responsible for the pervasive lawlessness that has gripped this city, and is the logical byproduct of Krasner's wholesale dismantling of the district attorney's office, and his ongoing war on Philadelphia police officers. 

And at every step of the way in this odyssey, rather than hold the D.A. accountable for the human toll of his "reforms," the Inquirer has instead acted as Larry Krasner's cheerleader and turned a blind eye to all the lies and all the suffering he has wrought. 

In Philadelphia, we need an intervention to get rid of our current corrupt D.A.

We could also use an honest newspaper.