Larry Krasner Blows A Dog Whistle

By Ralph Cipriano

for BigTrial.net

At an April 26th budget hearing, City Council member David Oh asked District Attorney Larry Krasner a simple question. 

"Do you believe that Philadelphia, right now, today, has a reputation, inside and outside of the city, as a lawless city where crimes of all sorts can be committed without the certainty of apprehension or punishment," Oh asked. "Do you believe that to be true or not true?"

Rather than admit that he was the single person most responsible for Philadelphia's descent into lawlessness, Krasner tried to get himself out of a political jam by resorting to some incendiary rhetoric. To do that, the Philly D.A. had to go back more than half a century to dig up a couple of disgraced politicians who were long dead, but on the tongue of a demagogue, could still be useful as straw men. 

"I got to be honest with you, when I hear the word lawless, my hair sticks up on the back of my neck," Krasner lectured Oh, an Asian-American who's a Republican. "And it sticks up because I remember in 1968, when Richard Nixon, a criminal, and Spiro Agnew, his vice president candidate at their convention -- he was also a criminal, he took bribes and had to be removed from office -- kept calling every American city . . . that had a lot of black and brown people lawless."

Nixon's been dead for 28 years, Agnew, 26 years. And never mind that back in 1968, Philadelphia, with a larger population than it has today, had only had 262 murders, compared to the all-time record the city set last year under Krasner with 562 murders. 

But that didn't stop Krasner from informing Oh that in describing Philadelphia as "lawless," the city council member was guilty of invoking a racist "code word" used by Nixon and his fellow Republicans before they devised their infamous "southern strategy" to openly stoke the fears and resentments of whites toward blacks. 

"It is a dog whistle," Krasner admonished Council member Oh about his use of the word lawless. "It's not my word. I'm not the one using Richard Nixon's word."

When A Dog Whistle Is Not A Dog Whistle

Make no mistake about it, Philadelphia under Larry Krasner as D.A. is lawless. The city set all time records last year for murders, shootings and carjackings, and may set new records this year in all three categories.

In Philadelphia, prostitutes and drug addicts don't have to worry about getting arrested since Larry Krasner became D.A. Kensington's an open air drug market. Stores in Center City are closing because their shelves are being picked clean because D.A. Krasner won't prosecute retail theft under $500. Cops fearful of getting indicted by Krasner for any misstep are playing it safe while they're leaving in droves.

But at a City Council budget hearing, when confronted with the havoc that he's wreaked, Larry Krasner was willing to yell fire in a crowded theater to avoid taking responsibility for his own actions.

Moments later, however, when City Council member Cindy Bass, an African-American who's a Democrat, asked Krasner the same question, Krasner, the great white emancipator who's made a political career out of pandering to the black community, had no moral lecture for Bass.

Apparently, when the word "lawless" is spoken by a black Democrat, it's no longer a dog whistle.

"I don't want to make the hair stand up . . . on the back of your neck," Bass began by telling Krasner. But "the concept, or the idea that people feel that there is a sense of lawlessness in Philadelphia, I do think it needs to be addressed. Because I've seen some things in the last couple of years as a life-long Philadelphian, I've never seen before."

Bass told Krasner that in Philadelphia right now, it was her perception that there is a "sense of lawlessness, that you can do what you like, you can get away with it, you will not be caught. . . there is a feeling of invincibility, I think among some of the criminal element in our city," she said, whether "we're talking about stealing from a WaWa or we're talking about a homicide."

Regarding prosecution, Bass said, residents "feel that there's a revolving door; that people who are arrested and charged are easily let go; that there's not the level of enforcement from the district attorney's office or seeming concern around the severity of different types of crime" being inflicted on the citizenry.

"I hear it every single day from my constituents" she said, about how the D.A.'s office fails at "removing dangerous people from the streets."

BS Story No. 1: Krasner's Dismal Record On Prosecuting Retail Theft

When Bass was through, Krasner responded by asking her who she was going to believe, the D.A. or her lying eyes. It was one of several BS stories that the D.A. told the City Council; stories that we're going take apart here.

"We prosecute people for retail theft every day," Krasner claimed, although he had to admit that the people they prosecute don't get charged with misdemeanors or felonies. Instead, most people who get caught stealing face only a summary offense that's punishable by up to 90 days in jail, which Let 'Em Loose Larry insisted, "is still a long time."

Crime stats from the D.A.'s own Data Dashboard, however, tell the story of just how ineffective Krasner's office is at prosecuting retail theft.

In 2014, the D.A.'s office under Seth Williams prosecuted 2,414 people for retail theft, and convicted 1,274; a conviction rate of nearly 53%.

In 2021, under Krasner, the D.A.'s office prosecuted only 245 people for retail theft; a decrease in prosecutions of nearly 90%.

Keep in mind Krasner only prosecutes a suspect when they're accused of stealing at least $500 worth of merchandise. And out of those 245 persons who were charged for retail theft under Krasner, only 34 were convicted.

That's a pathetic conviction rate of less than 14%. And most, if not all of those retail thieves, were convicted of just a summary offense.

Krasner's Revolving Door

Here's a couple of cases that illustrate the point that Council member Bass was trying to make about the revolving door of justice in the D.A.'s office under Krasner, and why she hears every day from her constituents about how the D.A.'s office fails at "removing dangerous people from the streets."

Before Larry Krasner became D.A. Mark Green, 33, of Hunting Park, pleaded guilty nine times during his criminal career, including six times for retail theft, as well as pleading guilty to robbery, drug possession and an attempted escape.

While Krasner was D.A., Green was arrested eight more times for cases that include a gunpoint robbery and aggravated assault. He only has one conviction, however, for disorderly conduct, a summary offense. The rest of the cases were either withdrawn or dismissed by the D.A.'s office. 

For example, on Oct. 12, 2021, Green was arrested for the seventh time while Krasner has been D.A. and was charged with retail theft, another summary offense. But on Feb. 18th, the D.A.'s office withdrew the charge. 

Green was promptly arrested again for the eighth time under Krasner, on May 2nd for indecent assault and corruption of minors. That case is still pending in the courts.

Another example of Krasner's revolving door is Patrick Harris, 38, a homeless career criminal with some 20 arrests. Harris was on parole for a gunpoint robbery when he was arrested for two retail thefts, but the D.A.'s office withdrew both cases. 

Harris was promptly re-arrested on June 21st for a retail theft that turned into a robbery. That case is still pending in the courts. 

Krasner Pisses On City Council And Says It's Raining

In Philadelphia, Mayor Jim Kenney is a woke lame duck who, two years into his second four-year term, appears to have already checked out. In the midst of a historic epidemic of gun violence, Kenney has been historically timid and afraid to openly criticize Krasner, for fear of alienating the D.A.'s progressive base.

Similarly, Danielle Outlaw, Kenney's hand-picked police commissioner, has followed the lead of her patron when it comes to dealing with Krasner. So as the shootings continue, and the dead and wounded bodies pile up in record numbers, both the mayor and the police commissioner typically tiptoe around the D.A. and shy away from publicly blaming him for his obvious culpability in the bloodshed.

So Kenney and Outlaw are weak and incompetent leaders who don't have the will to fight Krasner. The City Council has the power of the purse strings; they control Krasner's budget. They do have the power to hold the D.A. accountable, but sadly, they've failed to do so. Instead, they've let Krasner get away with showering them with BS. 

Last October, for example, at a hearing before the council's Special Committee On Gun Violence Prevention, the D.A. used deceptive rhetoric and bogus crime stats to cover up just how bad his record is when it came to prosecuting gun crimes.

At that hearing, the Police Department posted some damaging stats from the D.A.'s own Data Dashboard that showed that back in 2015, when Seth Williams was D.A., the conviction rate for the D.A.'s office when it came to prosecuting gun crimes was 73%. 

By 2020, under Krasner, that conviction rate for prosecuting gun crimes had dropped all the way down to 49%, and as of last October, it had plummeted to an alarming 35%. 

To make maters worse, while the conviction rate for gun crimes was tanking under Krasner, the number of gun cases that were either withrawn or dismissed by the D.A.'s office was soaring. 

In 2015, when Seth Williams was D.A., the number of gun cases that were either withdrawn or dismissed by the D.A.'s office amounted to 17%. By 2020 under D.A. Krasner, the number of gun cases that were either withdrawn or dismissed rose to 42%, and as of last October, it had soared to 61%. 

So when Krasner came on the Zoom conference last October to defend his record before City Council, he was armed with his own version of reality, as well as some phony crime stats that he had just cooked up. 

"Let me just hit one other high note so that there is a fuller understanding about what's going on with some gun cases and gun violence cases," Krasner told the City Council. "The news is actually quite good."

The D.A. then went on to compare the total number of all the gun cases prosecuted by his office over a four-year period to the total number of gun cases tossed out of court from just the first nine months of 2021. Doing his own apples-to-oranges math, the D.A. came up with what he described as a 93% success rate of gun cases that successfully got past the preliminary hearing stage, a phony stat that existed only in Krasner's head.

This year, at the City Council budget hearing, Krasner was up to his old tricks again. He bragged to the council about a "high level of collaboration" with police on gun crimes. The collaboration was so successful, Krasner told the Council, that "81% of those cases successfully get past a preliminary hearing and get on their way to trial."

"That is a very high rate, that is a very commendable rate," Krasner said.

But this was another stat totally made up by Krasner. The cases that get past a preliminary hearing, where a judge decides whether or not there is enough evidence to hold a defendant over for court, are still open cases and do not constitute a successful prosecution.

The real story is that as of last October, Krasner's office was only winning 35% of those gun cases. Once again, Krasner was throwing BS at the City Council, and once again he got away without anyone challenging him on it.

The City Council's Response To Krasner -- It's Still Raining

When I asked Council President Darrell Clarke about Krasner's performance at the April 26th budget hearing, Joe Grace, a spokesperson for Clarke, replied that "Council President Clarke has on a number of occasions raised direct, sharp questions about DA Krasner’s testimony during budget hearings, as well as other hearings in Council."

"I don’t have transcripts in front of me, but I’ve watched him question the DA about the office’s policies and practices in terms of prosecuting people — particularly for gun crimes," Grace said. "Council President Clarke has not been shy about questioning the DA directly on any of these issues, and he will continue doing that."

Sure enough, at the April 26th budget hearing, Council President Clarke complained that Krasner was giving "long answers to short questions."

"People don't feel safe," Clarke told Krasner. They're worried about getting shot if they venture out of their homes, Clarke said, and they're worried about their kids getting shot if they go out to a playground.

About the concern for public safety, Clarke told Krasner, "In all honesty I don't get a sense of that from you." And when Krasner blamed the police department for a low conviction rate on shootings, Clarke pointedly asked Krasner if he was part of the prosecution team, and Krasner had to sheepishly admit that he was. 

When I asked Clarke about Krasner's habit of lying to the council, however, Grace explained that although witnesses at budget hearings, such as Krasner, are not sworn in, "Obviously, the intent is for witnesses to be truthful in their testimony to Council."

But that's not what the City Council got from Krasner.

Regarding Krasner's discriminatory application of the word dog whistle, Grace replied, "I’m aware of the other member’s exchanges that you cite." But he declined to criticize the D.A.

Similarly, Council member Oh did not respond to a request for comment about the dog whistle; neither did Council member Helen Gym, the only other Asian-American on the council who typically swoons over Krasner's progressivism.  

Council member Cindy Bass did not respond to a request for comment on the dog whistle, and Council member Kenyatta Johnson, whose the head of that council gun violence committee, declined comment. 

As he has for the past three years, Krasner, who promised to be the most transparent Philly D.A. ever, did not respond to a request for comment.

At the April 26th City Council budget hearing, Krasner asked the council to provide his office with at least $43,305,949 for the 2023 fiscal year, which would have amounted to an increase of $616,367 over the D.A.'s budget for the last fiscal year. 

But the City Council decided that Krasner deserved even more money.

The city's $5.8 billion operating budget for 2023, which was unanimously approved on June 23 by a 17-0 vote, gave the DA's office a budget of $44,344,210 for the fiscal year that starts July 1st. That's an increase of $1,038,261 over the budget for the D.A.'s office last year, and $421,894 more than the D.A. had originally asked for.

So despite the way that Krasner continues to openly disrespect them, the City Council decided to reward Krasner for his bad behavior and horrendous performance in office.

In Philadelphia, this is why we need an intervention from those state legislators in Harrisburg who want to impeach Krasner. Because in Philadelphia, even though people are getting shot and killed in record numbers, no elected official has the balls to take on Krasner.

The city's Board of Ethics has had a similar impotent response to Krasner's repeated and brazen violations of the city's campaign finance laws.

Hell, Philadelphia can't even get the D.A. to pay his taxes. As of today, Krasner, the city's top law enforcement officer, still owes the city $83,406.50 in back taxes.

BS Story No. 2: A Fairy Tale About Prosecutors With Integrity

At theApril 26th budget hearing, Krasner had the audacity to brag about the performance of his office under his progressive leadership. According to Krasner, when residents see an "unjust, unfair and racist criminal justice system" being reformed by their heroic D.A., "they have quality of life and they will feel safe from gun violence.

"The truth is that integrity makes us safer when prosecutors are not crooked, and they prosecute with integrity, you get safety," Krasner lectured the City Council. "You get juries that will actually listen to your arguments in a courtroom.'

Once again, Krasner was talking about his own version of reality, where the integrity of his prosecutors had made the city safe again. Any sane observer would have to wonder what drugs he was on. But that didn't stop the D.A. from continuing to pontificate. 

Because his prosecutors have integrity, Krasner lectured the council, "You're improving the level at which witnesses and victims will come forward and participate because they trust that these prosecutors are not going to somehow turn the tables on them."

"Prosecute with integrity, you get safety," Krasner continued "Witnesses and victims come forward and juries believe you in court."

It's a nice fairy tale, but back in December 2020, however, Krasner was singing a different tune. In testimony before City Council, Krasner said that an analysis of some 400 illegal gun possession cases from 2016 to 2019 showed that the biggest reason that most of those cases were dismissed, some 50%, was because of witnesses not showing up. 

At a Jan. 10th press conference, Krasner complained once again about the lack of witnesses showing up in court, only this time, he blamed it on a faulty relationship between the police and the community, because of the police department's prior "stop and frisk" policy.

“Police go to every door, knock on the doors, ask if there are any witnesses,” Krasner said. “No witnesses come forward, or there are no witnesses. Sometimes you even have a shooting victim who is not providing information, so we have to use what we have.”

The Real Story About Prosecutors With Integrity

At the City Council budget hearing, Krasner wasn't done bragging about his rookie prosecutors. As he continued in his oratory, he invoked a baseball analogy.

"We have some amazing young attorneys that we have sourced from all over the country, and the best law schools in Philadelphia, who are knocking the ball out of the park," Krasner bragged to the City Council. "But they cannot keep dealing with overwhelming caseloads because of the pandemic and because of attrition .  . ."

As for Krasner's claim that his prosecutors are more effective because they have more integrity, well that's just plain laughable. And so are his claims about having a staff that despite having "overwhelming caseloads," is "knocking the ball out of the park."

The stats on Krasner's own Data Dashboard show that Krasner's rookie prosecutors are doing nearly half the workload that Seth Williams's prosecutors used to do, and they have a much lower conviction record to show for it.

In 2014, under Seth Williams, the D.A.'s office charged a total of 43,228 cases. But by 2021 under D.A. Krasner, the total of all cases charged by the D.A.'s office had fallen all the way down to 22,867 cases, a decrease of 47%.

Now about that conviction rate. 

In 2014 under D.A. Seth Williams, the conviction rate in the D.A.'s office for all crimes was 50.7%. By 2021 under Larry Krasner, the conviction rate in the D.A.'s office for all crimes had fallen all the way down to 22.6%.

That's less than half of what the conviction rate used to be under D.A. Seth Williams, when  prosecutors were doing twice the volume of cases that Larry Krasner's rookie prosecutors are doing. 

Some Sterling Examples Of Prosecutors Without Integrity 

While Krasner bragged about how much integrity his prosecutors have, here's a list of a dozen prosecutors in the D.A.'s office under Larry Krasner who have run into trouble for lying to judges, or have been accused of unethical conduct, or breaking the law:

-- Assistant District Attorney Patricia Cummings, Krasner's former head of his Conviction Integrity Unit has some glaring credibility problems of her own that were the subject of Outcry, a five-part documentary series that aired 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 in the case that she kept quiet about while Greg Kelley rotted in jail. 

This is the same ADA Cummings who, during her time in Philadelphia, was admonished in March 2021 by U.S. District Court Judge Mitchell Goldberg for a "lack of candor."

Cummings, who quietly resigned last August, had also used complaint files and personnel records to discredit some 750 Philadelphia police officers by placing them on a misconduct register. Dozens of those cops also wound up on the D.A.'s "Do Not Testify" list that prevented them from being called as witnesses to testify in court. Last November, however, the state Commonwealth Court that the D.A.'s Do Not Testify list was unconstitutional. 

-- Paul George, Nancy Winkelman and Max Kaufman, three high-ranking supervisors in Krasner's office, were just admonished by Judge Goldberg for a "lack of candor" in dealing with the court.

At issue was the case of Robert Wharton, who, with a co-defendant, was convicted in 1984 of strangling and drowning to death a husband and wife. After Wharton and his codefendant got through murdering the couple and ransacking their home, they turned off the heat in the dead of winter and left the couple's infant daughter, then 7-months old, alone to freeze to death, but she miraculously survived.  

In going along with a defense motion to get Wharton off death row, the three supervisors in the D.A.'s office told Judge Goldberg that Wharton had supposedly rehabilitated himself in prison. But the supervisors didn't tell the judge about the half-dozen times that Wharton had been disciplined in prison for breaking the rules. The three supervisors in the D.A.'s office also didn't tell the judge that in 1986, Wharton had tried to escape from a courtroom in City Hall, and was only stopped after he was shot twice by a sheriff's deputy. 

The D.A.'s office also neglected to inform Judge Goldberg that they hadn't bothered to contact the only child of the murdered couple, who had miraculously survived being left to freeze to death, as they were required to do by law, to let her know that they were trying to get the convicted killer of her parents off death row.

-- ADAs Thomas Gaeta, David Napiorski, Paul George, and Michael Garmisa, all of whom signed an April 5th response brief that told Common Pleas Court Judge Scott DiClaudio that as D.A. Krasner did not have any financial relationship with a couple of former law partners who were involved in a double murder case that was before the judge on appeal. 

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

And then Judge DiClaudio discovered that the four ADAs weren't telling him the truth. 

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.

-- ADA Rachel Black was reprimanded in March by Common Pleas Court Judge Karen Simmons for not being candid about the availability of a witness to testify in a case against former chief inspector Carl Holmes. Black subsequently resigned. 

-- ADA Dana Bazelon was arrested in 2020 for abandoning her four-year-old daughter in a locked car. After Bazelon took a parenting class, the state attorney general's office dismissed the charges against her.

-- ADA Anthony Voci was head of the homicide unit when he was riding his motorcycle back from a crime scene and got involved in a fall 2020 road rage incident with Khansandra Franklin, a black female motorist. Voci was accused of following Franklin back to her home with cops, who placed her under arrest and impounded her car. 

After the charges against her were dropped, Franklin filed a civil suit against Voci and the police department and the cops are conducting an internal investigation of Voci, as well as the cops who participated in the arrest of Franklin. 

-- ADA Joseph Torda was accused by his former girlfriend, a self-described "stripper, model & e-slut," of assault, breaking and entering, and burglary after Torda allegedly stole porn that he allegedly co-starred in. The state attorney general subsequently decided not to bring charges against Torda.

-- District Attorney Larry Krasner was accused of hiding personal conflicts of interest in his prosecution of former chief inspector Carl Holmes. 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.

Greg Pagano, Holmes's lawyer, subsequently filed a motion in Common Pleas Court to disqualify Krasner as prosecutor for his continuing vendetta against Holmes, who was accused by D.A. Krasner of sexually assaulting three female cops, but the motion was denied. 

Some Sterling Examples Of Other Krasner Staffers Without Integrity:

-- DeVonte' Douglass, Krasner's gun violence coordinator, shot and killed Vernon Harris, a 29 year-old male prostitute that Douglass met on Instagram. In January, the attorney general's office ruled that Douglass had acted in self-defense and would not be charged with homicide. 

However, the AG's office arrested Douglass and charged him with soliciting for prostitution, possession of an instrument of crime, and misleading investigators about the facts surrounding the fatal shooting.

-- G. Lamar Stewart, Krasner's chief of community engagement, got into a road rage incident last June and pulled over an FBI agent. When the agent flashed his badge, Stewart fled the scene and had to be pursued by the FBI agent and other cops before he pulled over. Stewart, who has a protection order filed against him, does not carry a gun and was driving around in plainclothes and an unmarked car when he pulled the FBI agent over. 

A female cop also claimed that Stewart pulled the same stunt on her when she was driving to work.

-- Gregory Holston, who is paid $140,000 a year to serve as Krasner's senior advisor on advocacy and policy, is a disbarred lawyer who lost his license according to court records after he forged a judge's signature on a phony divorce decree, and when questioned about it by the judge, he lied.

-- Adam Foss, a criminal justice reformer and TED talk star hired by Krasner in 2018 for nine weeks to train Krasner's impressionable new ADAs. Foss's unconventional training methods included a field trip to visit a prison, to talk to men who were given life sentences as teenagers, and a sleepover for prosecutors at a homeless shelter.

In 2020, Foss became the subject of a criminal investigation announced by the county D.A.'s office in Boston, where he used to work, after he was publicly accused by several women of being a serial predator and rapist who was knowingly spreading STDs. But an investigation overseen last year by Rachael Rollins, the county D.A. in Boston, concluded that Foss's behavior was "troubling" but did not constitute criminal conduct.

Back in Philadelphia, Krasner refused to disclose how much Foss was paid and whether he behaved inappropriately with any of Krasner's impressionable young prosecutors.

-- Movita Harrell-Johnson, who before she became a state legislator, served as Krasner's supervisor of the  victim and witness services and restorative justice unit. She was he was in that job on Nov. 11, 2018 when her son, Donte Lee Johnson, 29, was arrested and charged with assault for allegedly punching a 27 year-old woman in the face, a woman who identified herself to police as the mother of Johnson's son.

Rather than step aside due to an obvious conflict of interest, the D.A.'s office dropped the charges against Donte Lee Johnson.

Movita subsequently resigned as a state legislator a day after she pleaded guilty to charges of theft by deception, perjury, and tampering with public records in connection with stealing $500,000 from a nonprofit she founded to allegedly help people struggling with mental illness, drug addiction and homelessness.

Undaunted, Movita still runs another nonprofit, the Charles Foundation, founded in 2011, which focuses on helping at-risk children, after losing her son to gun violence. It's a foundation that's been recently promoted by The Philadelphia Inquirer, which seems to have overlooked Movita's previous transgressions.

Quite an impressive roster, wouldn't you say? As Krasner famously said when he first took over the D.A.'s office and fired the 31 most senior prosecutors, "The coach gets to pick the team."

And what a team of all-stars Coach Krasner has assembled!

In the future if we're looking to field a team in the D.A.'s office with integrity, maybe it would be a good idea to find a coach with integrity, so he knows it when he sees it.

Meanwhile in Harrisburg, the state House of Representatives just voted 114-86 to establish a five-member Select Committee on Restoring Law and Order, which will have subpoena powers to investigate Krasner's office for impeachable offenses.

Memo to the select committee -- if you're looking for some folks to drop subpoenas on, the list above would be a good start.