Monday, October 3, 2016

D.A.'s Office Explains Why They Let Mohammed & Fatboy Go Free

The D.A. Who Legalized Drug Dealing
By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

The District Attorney's Office, which has stonewalled this blog for four years, is suddenly talking about their decision to free a couple of accused drug dealers -- Mohammed and the Fatboy -- who got caught red-handed with 225 pounds of marijuana worth more than $2 million.

Here's what the D.A. had to say about dropping the charges against Mohammed and the Fatboy, along with some 800 other accused drug dealers previously arrested by former members of the Narcotics Field Unit South:

The DA's office is expected to seek justice, not just convictions. On occasion, that means we may be unable to pursue a case because of concerns about the trustworthiness of a particular witness. When that witness is a police witness, multiple cases may be affected. That is an unfortunate but essential element of our professional responsibility as prosecutors. Decisions of this sort are in no way unique to this office; federal officials have made similar determinations.

We waited four years for that? "Self-serving" and "disingenuous" was how one prominent criminal defense lawyer characterized it.

"The foundation in the D.A.'s office seems to be crumbling," said FOP President John McNesby. After he read the D.A.'s statement, McNesby expressed hope that Williams would lose his bid for reelection next year.

"Quite frankly, it's going to be a breath of fresh air" when Seth Williams is gone from the D.A.'s office, McNesby said. "Hopefully, we'll be dealing with someone with a clearer mind."

Jack McMahon is a former Philadelphia assistant district attorney who's a criminal defense lawyer. Last year, he successfully defended Officer Brian Reynolds, a former member of the Narcotics Field Unit South, against federal RICO charges.

"This self serving and disingenuous comment of 'seeking justice, not just convictions' is nothing more than their inability to admit an extraordinary rush to judgment and monumental mistake," McMahon said about the D.A.'s office.

 McMahon says the D.A.'s office bet the house on a hunch.

"What I believe happened was they [the D.A.'s office] knew there was a federal investigation and they tried to be way out ahead of it to show how 'responsible' and on top of things they were," McMahon said.

He was talking about how, back in 2012, D.A. Williams wrote a two-paragraph letter to the police commissioner, announcing that his office would no longer prosecute any drug arrests made by Lt. Robert Otto, and five members of the Narcotics Field Unit South.

"Seth figured the feds were going to do something sometime and didn't want to look like he was in the dark," McMahon said. "Problem is he did it on rumor and supposition and not on real evidence and simply figured that if the feds are involved, it 'must' be true."

"They were one of the best outfits in the city," FOP President McNesby said about the former members of the Narcotics Field Unit South.

"There were just so many holes" in the RICO case against the narcs, McNesby said, "And it all started with Seth . . . I think the D.A.'s office sold the feds a line of shit and none of it was true."

"Now, the city is paying out their ass for this," he said. McNesby was referring to the millions of dollars that taxpayers will have to fork over to pay for seven lawyers. They were hired to defend the city against 175 civil rights cases filed by the formerly accused drug dealers that Seth Williams set free.

"You've got a lot of drug dealers getting their records scrubbed clean," McNesby said. "They [the narcs] were taking a lot of drugs and money off the street; they were the go-to squad."

"What you've got is Seth Williams pointing the fingers at a lot of people who are out doing the job," McNesby said, at a time when the D.A. should have been more concerned about setting his own house in order.

McNesby was talking about recent disclosures that Williams accepted $160,000 worth of gifts, such as a new $45,000 roof, as well as sideline passes to Eagles games.

While the D.A. was trashing police officers, McNesby said, inside the D.A.'s office, "There was no kind of integrity." Williams, McNesby said, was the kind of guy who, "You could throw a fifty in his top pocket at the Union League and he'd keep walking and smoking his cigar."

Relations between the police force and the D.A.'s office are so bad these days, McNesby said, "You have to have an act of Congress to get someone arrested." Every day, McNesby says, he hears complaints from detectives that "They're not approving arrest warrants" at the D.A.'s office unless you have an "airtight, 100 percent case."

To underscore what McNesby is talking about, this weekend, according to a knowledgable law enforcement source, a couple of cops caught a suspect red-handed inside a Bank of America branch at 23rd and Oregon after the suspect had broken in. The bank had surveillance photos of the guy trying to open the vault.

But the district attorney's office declined to prosecute the case because there was no video of the break-in and the officers were the only witnesses.

That's how bad things are in Philadelphia, under the administration of D.A. Seth Williams. Maybe drug dealing isn't the only crime legalized by the district attorney's office. Bank robbery could be next.

Meanwhile, McNesby says about the D.A.'s office's recent holiday for drug dealers, "You just let 800 people hit the lottery."

According to McNesby, people in law enforcement have responded to Seth's anti-cop bias by tuning out the D.A.

"Now, when he [Williams] is screaming and yelling it's like pointing an unloaded gun at somebody," McNesby said.

"Nobody cares. They know it's just a matter of time before he's out."

13 comments

  1. What a disgrace the DA has been. The Police have a hard enough job and with no backing it's impossible. The police should watch there backs, they don't want to go through what the 6 narcs went through. I hope the narcs sue the ASSES OUT OF THE CITY AND RETIRE MILLIONAIRES.

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  2. Of course, Jack McMahon Esq. and his cohorts have a lucrative practice representing the felons that the narcs bust and the D.A. arbitrarily prosecutes.

    These Trial Lawyers have prospered with this Gravy Train.

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  3. Why isn't the Inquirer writing about this?

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  4. Rufus was, is and always will be the biggest embarrassment to this city that law enforcement has ever seen. He was a national embarrassment when he put that stupid "hoody"on and looking at him now, I wonder what all law enforcement professionals across the nation must have been thinking when they saw the District Attorney of Philadelphia acting like a one-sided juvenile delinquent with his ridiculous look at me need for media attention. I agree with the comment above, why in the world isn't the Inquirer and other news outlets picking up these stories? What an absolute disgrace! Keep reporting on this story Ralph. Eventually someone has to read/listen to this unbelievable story of out and out corruption, deceit, incompetence, unethical conduct and complete stupidity on the part of Rufus Seth Williams. The tax payers need to know they have been victimized by their own District Attorney who took an oath to protect and serve "them", not himself.

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  5. "The DA's office is expected to seek justice, not just convictions. On occasion, that means we may be unable to pursue a case because of concerns about the trustworthiness of a particular witness......." (or a potential victim, right?)

    Odd, isn't it that the DA and his minions didn't tale this lofty stance when they first sprung Billy Doe out of Graterford?

    Rufus' house of cards is starting to collapse. Maybe he can get a job at SNAP, along with Sorensen, think?

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  6. Yes, the DA's office and federal prosecutors are supposed to be the seekers of justice, but in reality they want to win at all costs and have lots of very gullible citizens to do their dirty work for them serving as very misguided jurors.

    302's go missing, tapes malfunction and witness that could help defendants are not located. This was apparent during the Traffic Court trial,defense attorneys pointed out blatant lies at trial, prosecutors and the FBI lied to get indictments. Purposely misleading a grand jury with crafted lies, lies that defendants must then bankrupt themselves to defend. It would be wonderful to film a trial, then have a fact finder with a buzzer alert the public to lies told by the seekers of justice.

    When prosecutors are held accountable then and only then will the tide turn for the public from living in fear of indictment, arrest and prison at the hands of their own government.

    A few of the Traffic Court Judges were indicted on tickets they had nothing to do with, or had found ticket holders guilty, one ticket holder could not remember if she was ever in the Traffic Court building to have her ticket heard.The IT relay company was located in the state of New York, to add another charge to the Judges long list of charges. Information that had to be relayed from Spring Garden St to Harrisburg went via New York, a decision the Supreme Court made, not the Traffic Court Judges.Yet the prosecution wanted the Judges to go to jail for the rest of their lives.

    One particular egregious lie on the part of the prosecution was regarding a ticket for a trucking company, an employee that was responsible for registration and documentation for the trucking company defended a ticket at Traffic Court , he produced the necessary documentation to satisfy the judge who heard the case at Traffic Court. The prosecution had the driver of the truck that was ticketed and a official of the company testify that they did not go to Traffic Court to defend the ticket which was correct, but the prosecution told the jury they were unable to find the former employee that defended the ticket,which the feds said was tossed without any hearing whatsoever. Even though there was a paper trail and a taped voice recording played at trial .

    The FBI and IRS with all their resources were unable to located the former employee that defended the ticket, yet the defense team easily found the man responsible on social media and the phone book, who then proceed to explain to the court he did appear at Traffic Court with the proper registration and documentation. The feds lied to the grand jury to get an indictment and again at trial. Its hard to imagine your own government working against its own citizens but it happens day in and day out.

    Prosecutors may win some battles but they are losing the war, no one has faith in them anymore as saviors of justice, what we are seeing are desperate individuals willing to sacrifice their souls for a conviction.
    Crossing the line and willing to send innocents to their death or prison for life has corrupted our judicial system.

    We just need the media to side with defendants the way they blindly defend prosecutors , reporting what is going on in the court room would be a start, blindly ignoring evidence is undermining the entire justice system. Having the prosecution on your side must be comforting for the media, its the rest of the citizens that need to be concerned.

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  7. Lynne Abraham is getting the last laugh

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  8. Partial Article found on the Marshall Project website titled " Americas Top Five Deadliest Prosecutors" in a report by Harvard Law School.

    Lynne Abraham, known as the ‘Queen of death’, saw 108 capital sentences returned during her time as chief prosecutor in Philadelphia County.

    One had a poster from the movie Tombstone on his office wall with “Justice is coming” emblazoned on it; another used a miniature model of an electric chair as a paperweight; a third, dubbed the “Queen of death”, said she was “passionate” about judicially killing people and described the emotion of watching an execution as a “non-event”.

    What they all had in common was a vast appetite for putting men and women to death. What additionally made them special was that they all had the power to turn such unusual tastes into sentences.

    As head prosecutors in their counties, just five individuals have been responsible for putting no fewer than 440 prisoners onto death row. If you compare that number to the 2,943 who are currently awaiting execution in the US, it is equivalent to one out of every seven.

    Or express the figure another way: of the 8,038 death sentences handed down since the death penalty was restarted in the modern era 40 years ago this week, some one in 20 of them have been the responsibility of those five district attorneys alone.

    The five are profiled in a new report from Harvard Law School’s Fair Punishment Project. Titled America’s Top Five Deadliest Prosecutors, the report highlights the lion-sized role in the modern death penalty of just four men and one woman.

    They are: Joe Freeman Britt of Robeson County, North Carolina; Donnie Myers of Lexington, South Carolina; Bob Macy of Oklahoma County; Lynne Abraham of Philadelphia County; and Johnny Holmes of Harris County, Texas.

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    1. Probably some of the best info that was put on this site. Thanks. Not for nothing....you sure you are in the rite place?

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  9. The remaining two of the five most deadly prosecutors did not personally secure all their own death sentences but did preside over teams of lawyers who put astonishing numbers of people onto death row. Lynne Abraham, known as the “Queen of death”, saw 108 capital sentences returned during her time as chief prosecutor in Philadelphia County.


    Asked whether she had ever doubted the outcome of a capital case, she said categorically that she never had. Yet two of her cases ended in exonerations.

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  10. another example of this corrupt city government.

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  11. This is just another example of the brightest not being the smartest. Name one time in this country a prosecutor has ever put someone to death or has ever put someone on death row. They indeed may ask for the death penalty in certain cases but it is the jury or the judge who ultimately makes the decision the convicted receives that needle in the arm and his/her life gets snuffed out.

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    1. The jury and the judge are led by the nose by the prosecution. The jury is but a tool for the prosecutor to control the outcome. I suggest you go to the website for the National Registry of Exonerations and see how many times " official misconduct " is sited as a reason for the exoneration. You are not reading enough, with almost weekly exoneration's, how could anyone in good conscience send anyone to their deaths. If Seth Williams behavior does not give you pause to think you are still drinking the KoolAid.

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