D.A. Enables Murder Suspect To Become Triple Murder Suspect

D.A. Krasner cuts off questions about alleged triple murderer

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

On the night of Dec. 28, 2020, Ebony Kitchen got involved in a physical altercation out in the street with a woman and a man.

What happened next was caught on surveillance video outside a smoke shop on the 5800 block of Rising Sun Avenue.

According to police, Savion Perez, who wasn't involved in the fight, went up to the 24 year-old Kitchen and shot her point-blank in the head, killing her. 

On April 2, 2021, police arrested Perez, 23, of the Juniata section of Philadelphia, and charged him with murder, conspiracy, two gun charges, and reckless endangerment. The police also arrested three co-defendants and charged them each with seven counts, including murder, conspiracy, aggravated assault, and reckless endangerment.

The next stage of the criminal justice process involved a preliminary hearing, where a judge would decide whether the D.A.'s office had enough evidence to bind the defendants over for trial. But after a couple of continuances in court, on July 21, 2021, when a witness failed to appear again, Judge James DeLeon dismissed all charges against all four defendants for a lack of prosecution. 

What happened next has baffled homicide cops and former prosecutors who reviewed the case.

11

Noted Anti-Racist Inky Publisher Accused Of Racism!

Racially rabid Lisa Hughes

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Don't look now but that noted anti-racism crusader, Lisa Hughes, publisher and CEO of The Philadelphia Inquirer, has just been publicly accused of -- gasp, shriek -- racism!

Hughes, as you remember, is the rabid ideologue who branded her own newspaper as racist for having published a headline in 2020 that said, "Buildings Matter, Too."

That headline, according to Hughes, committed the "grievous and unpardonable offense" of offending a group of corrupt Marxist grifters known as Black Lives Matter.

That allegedly racist headline prompted Hughes to declare that henceforth, the Inquirer would become a crusading "anti-racist" newspaper.

Hughes gained more notoriety as a deranged lunatic when she began publishing the "More Perfect Union" series. This dubious endeavor, financed with a $1.3 million grant from the gullible Lenfest Institute for Journalism, is in the process of indicting every major institution in town for the sin of systemic racism, dating back centuries, starting, of course, with The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Yesterday, however, a newly created rainbow coalition of minority journalists issued a manifesto that publicly demanded an immediate sit-down with Hughes and Inquirer Editor Gabriel Escobar for not living up to their previously stated diversity goals. And if Hughes and Escobar don't bow to their demands, the coalition threatened to launch a nasty PR campaign that would allegedly expose Hughes and Escobar for being a couple of racist hypocrites!

This upcoming clash not only will provide the rest of us with more entertainment, but it's also a chance to witness the Shakespearian spectacle of Hughes being hoisted with her own petard.

8

A White Guy Walks Into A Black Church . . .

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

It was back in the dying days of newspaper journalism, when the editors were trying to shake things up by experimenting with different points of view.

Thirty years ago, to the shock of my colleagues, as well as myself, I was  named the religion reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer.

In our left-wing liberal newsroom, I got the assignment because I didn't believe in God, didn't go to church and had never read a page of the Bible, or any other sacred or religious text, because the topic bored me. 

I was at the Inquirer, after all, the place where the editors used to say, when everybody zigs, we zag. At the time the editors, facing declining circulation rates and plunging ad revenues, were tinkering by doing thinks like, say, sending a feature writer down to a train station, to write about the rats that come out at night, or dispatching a female reporter to storm a men's locker room. 

I was to be another journalistic experiment; the guy with no faith writing about people who had it, the guy who believed in nothing writing about people who believed in just about everything. 

My boss, Robert J. Rosenthal, then the Inquirer's city editor, was a secular Jew who told me, a fallen Catholic, that he shared my skepticism about organized religion. And that's why he thought I would be the perfect guy to shake up the paper's typically dull and boring religion beat. 

I thought my boss was crazy. And that if I wrote what I really thought about religion and religious people, there might be some serious pushback in a town that was heavily Catholic.

“You’re going to get both of us fired,” I said. 

21

Philly D.A. Krasner Lied To NYT About Gun Crime Recidivism

By Ralph Cipriano

for BigTrial.net

District Attorney Larry Krasner told The New York Times last week that only a "small fraction" of the people  who were arrested and charged with illegally carrying guns have been rearrested for allegedly committing violent crimes. 

But crime stats tracked by Big Trial for the past four years show that more than 40% of the people who were originally arrested for illegally carrying guns during two summer months in 2019 have been rearrested and charged with new violent crimes that include nonfatal shootings, murders, rapes and carjackings. 

To make matters worse, the NYT story was published three days after a press conference in Philadelphia, where the D.A. bragged to local reporters about how tough he'd been on two gang members who'd just been sentenced for a wave of gang-related shootings back in 2018 and 2019. 

But court records reveal that both gang members were part of Krasner's "small fraction" who were originally arrested for illegally carrying guns. And then, after they were set free by a combination of a light sentence and low bail, or the D.A.'s office just plain dropped the charges, the two gang members went out and committed violent crimes.

And when the two gang members were arrested again and convicted for committing violent crimes, the D.A.'s office under Krasner didn't exactly crack down on them, as Krasner would have you believe. Instead, the D.A.'s office under Krasner gave the two gang members plea bargains that were so lenient they amounted to deals too good to turn down.

So Krasner was lying about that small fraction of illegal gun carriers who get rearrested for violent crimes, and he was lying about getting tough on those two gang members.

But as usual when he deals with gullible progressive media outlets, Krasner got away with both lies, with the exception of Big Trial. At the press conference here in Philadelphia, I twice attempted to question Krasner about a lenient sentence that one of those gang members received. 

And Krasner's response was to order the police to forcibly evict me from the building, a flagrant violation of the First Amendment. 

6

For Third Straight Press Conference, Fearful Krasner Flees Reporter

D.A. Larry Krasner prepares to flee

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

District Attorney Larry Krasner is so used to being coddled by the docile Philadelphia press corps that when somebody asks him a tough question, he literally doesn't know what to do.

Instead, Krasner panics and gets all twitchy. And then he runs and hides.

For the third straight week, Krasner today rearranged the format of his weekly press conference for the sole purpose of preventing Big Trial from asking him any tough questions. 

Instead, Krasner called on by name every other reporter the room, including a shy young intern at one of the local TV stations, so they could take turns lobbing him softballs, in English and Spanish.

And when they were finally done, the D.A. abruptly called off the press conference, turned tail and headed for the exits. He was protected by a couple of bodyguards who physically prevented your Big Trial correspondent from confronting our cowardly D.A. before he hustled out of the room.  

It was a pathetic performance by a public official, matched only by the passivity of the local press corps who collectively are a disgrace to journalism. As I have written previously, while people in this city are being shot, murdered and carjacked at historic levels, the timid local media is protecting Krasner by failing to report the overwhelming and readily available evidence that proves he is a complete failure as D.A.

The conflict-adverse D.A. began today's performance with a fake show of transparency. 

14

Philly Inquirer Sues Stu Bykofsky For Defending His Reputation

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net 

The Philadelphia Inquirer is playing hardball with former columnist Stu Bykofsky, who famously sued the paper for defamation after his going-away party went nuclear. 

On June 29th in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, the Inquirer filed a lawsuit against Bykofsky alleging that in defending his reputation, he had violated a non-disparagement clause that he signed three years ago when he took a buyout. 

In the lawsuit, which the head of Bykofsky's union says is unprecedented, the Inquirer is seeking to recoup from Bykofsky "gross pay in the amount of $58,738.56," plus "payment of his COBRA medical expenses for a period of eight months."

"Suing a former 40 year employee over his exercising his First Amendment right by defending himself is pretty ironic don't you think?" said Bill Ross, the executive director of the News Guild of Greater Philadelphia.

Ross, who termed the newspaper's lawsuit "a pretty desperate measure," said that "in all the buyouts the Inquirer has had over the past 20 years, they have never sued a former Guild member for violating the terms of the buyout."

"It's like shooting somebody and then sending them a bill afterwards for cleaning the blood stains off the carpet," said Mark Schwartz, Bykofsky's lawyer. "What are they thinking, that in the middle of this, they're going to scare us? I'm looking forward to trying this case."

And instead of seeking $58,000, Schwartz said, he'll be asking a jury for millions.

14

Philly Inquirer Censors The News To Prop Up D.A. Krasner

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

At the Philadelphia Inquirer last week, the newspaper marshaled all of its resources to support one of its progressive heroes, District Attorney Larry Krasner.

After a trio of suburban Republicans in the state House of Representatives launched a drive to impeach Krasner, the Inquirer responded last week with a barrage of censorship and propaganda aimed at propping up Krasner, while the shootings and murders in this town continued unabated. 

The Inquirer's multi-pronged attack began on Tuesday when the three house members, joined by state Rep. Martina White, another Republican from Northeast Philadelphia, held a press conference on the steps of the State Capitol in Harrisburg that featured a rainbow coalition of two dozen crime victims protesting against Krasner.

It made for compelling drama. Julio Moran talked about his mother, Gladys Coriano, a religious woman barely five feet tall, and how she was shot to death by an abusive ex-husband who had repeatedly violated a protection order by stalking, harassing and attacking her. 

Despite a half-dozen police reports, Moran said, the D.A.'s office under Krasner repeatedly declined to protect his mother and then sat on an arrest warrant for six days, which gave the abusive ex-husband another chance to shoot and kill her.

"The D.A.'s office would not do their jobs and they would not hold the offender accountable for his actions," Moran said. "This was a violent predator."

“My mother didn’t fall through the cracks of the criminal justice system," Moran said. "She fell through a trapdoor created by Krasner and his group of false public servants.” 

8

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!

19

Fox News Calls Out Larry Krasner For Being A Tax Deadbeat

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

In case you missed it, Fox News just called out Philadelphia D.A. Larry Krasner nationally for being a local tax deadbeat.

Krasner has a 40% stake in Tiger Building LP, which owns the former Princeton Club at 1221-23 Locust Street. 

In the two weeks since Big Trial broke the April 29th story about Krasner being a tax deadbeat again, the bill for unpaid taxes on Krasner's former Princeton Club posted online has jumped from $84,752.46 to $86,043.57.

Isn't it curious? Foxnews.com saw a national story in the hypocrisy of Philadelphia's top law enforcement official being a habitual tax deadbeat, especially after he appeared in an ad promoting "fully funded public schools." But here in Philadelphia, not a single media outlet saw Krasner's tax delinquent status and hypocrisy as worthy of a local story.

At The Philadelphia Inquirer, with the primaries next week, Inky staffers were busy talking up John Fetterman, the "Democrat socialist" lumberjack running for U.S. senator, while trashing as many GOP candidates as possible for senator and governor.

At Philly mag, they were busy writing about backyard chickens and wild martinis. 

For reporters and editors covering corrupt and contented Philadelphia, holding our corrupt and incompetent local politicians accountable seems to be a low priority.

6

Woke Disney's Toy Department Serves Up Sentimental Hogwash

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

In serving up "The Paterno Legacy," ESPN, the official toy department of the woke Walt Disney Company, has soiled itself, misled the public, and dishonored journalism. 

Don't get me wrong, what's urgently needed in the so-called Penn State sex abuse scandal is a serious journalistic re-examination of what really happened there.

But that's not going to happen. Why? Because I know from my own painful personal experiences from too many Zoom conferences with several documentary film makers and honchos from TV news departments that today's cowardly woke journos are actually scared to death of this story.

So on the tenth anniversary of the scandal that was ignited by an illegal grand jury leak from a certifiably corrupt prosecutor to a useful idiot of a reporter, the woke ideologues from Disney's toy department decided it was a convenient time to reprise the scandal by allegedly reexamining the so-called Paterno legacy. But the sports reporters at ESPN clearly weren't up to the job.

Instead if educating the public about startling but long-suppressed facts contained in leaked formerly confidential records, or digging through layer upon layer of now-documented corruption in the case, the ESPN documentary had a different goal in mind. Based on the "reporting" of John Barr, the ESPN show at every turn resorted to cheap, weapy emotionalism and sensationalism, served up with a healthy heaping of intellectual dishonesty. 

The aim was to perpetuate a 10-year journalistic cover-up and completely rehash a now discredited story line that was the product of a media frenzy fueled by the hysteria and pack mentality of woke but moronic sports reporters.

As a result of shoddy reporting, the entire 48-minute Paterno legacy "documentary" can be dismissed in just two words famously uttered by Mr. Potter in It's A Wonderful Life -- "sentimental hogwash."

4

Why I Won't Be Part Of The Inquirer's 'More Perfect Union' Project

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

In case you haven't heard, The Philadelphia Inquirer is now engaged in a year-long crusade to expose systemic racism at every historic institution in town, starting with the Inquirer itself. 

The project dubbed "A More Perfect Union" is being financed by a $1.3 million grant from the Lenfest Institute for Journalism. 

As part of the project to write about "issues of race" in Philadelphia, Wesley Lowery, a distinguished Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, CBS correspondent and author, emailed me Sunday and politely asked if I, as a former Inky staffer and current Inky critic, would be interested in being interviewed about the newspaper. 

I said thanks but no thanks. 

"I just don’t think indicting the Inquirer for decades-old racism is going to accomplish anything positive," I wrote back. "How does this help today’s residents?"

I then suggested that if Black Lives really mattered, instead of digging up 18th century graveyards, the Inquirer could put its resources to far better use by launching a full-fledged investigation of District Attorney Larry Krasner, instead of constantly covering for him. 

7

Lisa Hughes, Come Out From Hiding!

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

It's been a couple of days since Big Trial dropped a bomb on The Philadelphia Inquirer, so yesterday I thought I'd check in with my old pal Lisa Hughes, to see what she had to say.

Dear Ms. Hughes:

As publisher and CEO of the Inquirer, I wonder if you have any comment on the lawsuit filed yesterday in Common Pleas Court regarding an alleged conspiracy by UPenn and the Inquirer to allegedly smear and retaliate against grad student Mackenzie Fierceton . . .

I know lawsuits can allege anything but as a former Inquirer reporter, I really don’t understand why the Inquirer pursued this story once it was confirmed that this student had been physically abused by her mother, and had been removed from her mother’s home by the state and placed in foster care. Also, Fierceton was a key witness in a wrongful death suit filed against Penn."

Wouldn’t those facts have made this student radioactive as far as the Inquirer was concerned? I also don’t understand why Mr. [Inquirer Editor Gabriel] Escobar injected himself into this story when he had previously stated that he had a conflict of interest, because of his wife’s job at Penn."

I’m also at a loss at how to square this episode with the Inquirer’s supposedly progressive views, usually on daily display at inquirer.com. According to the original story the Inquirer ran on Fierceton winning a Rhodes Scholarship, the student “identified as queer.” 

3

Samantha Melamed -- Larry Krasner's Official Propagandist

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

When does a major legal defeat for the District Attorney of Philadelphia turn into a victory?

When Samantha Melamed, Larry Krasner's faithful propagandist, is writing the story for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Melamed, a full-time "justice & injustice" reporter who's paid by the Inquirer to write only pro-Krasner puff pieces, really outdid herself today.

On Tuesday, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled that a "Do Not Call List" of allegedly tainted cops compiled by D.A. Krasner -- a list that would prohibit those cops from testifying in court as witnesses -- is unconstitutional.

But when Melamed showed up two days late in print with today's Inquirer, she allowed D.A. Krasner, a habitual liar known for cooking up his own phony crime stats, to falsely claim that "We won" the case. Next, Melamed quoted Patricia Cummings, head of the Conviction Integrity Unit, as saying the D.A.'s office always treated the cops fairly by giving them an opportunity to correct the D.A.'s allegations of misconduct against them. 

Melamed, who did not respond to a request for comment, obviously never read the 34-page opinion written by Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough.

Had Melamed read Judge McCullough's opinion, she would have discovered that the judge specifically stated that the former process that the D.A.'s office employed to allegedly give the cops a chance to correct allegations of misconduct -- the exact same process described by Cummings in the Inquirer story -- was woefully inadequate in terms of protecting the cops' constitutional rights. 

The judge even went a step further to say that the D.A.'s office could not be trusted to be fair to the cops. 

But Melamed didn't report any of that. Instead, she quoted just six words from the judge's 34-page opinion that ruled that the D.A.'s office for the past four years has been trampling on the constitutional rights of cops. And then Melamed allowed Krasner to falsely claim victory in a case that he clearly lost.

15

Inquirer Covers Up Big Lies Told By Kenney, Krasner & Outlaw

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

One of the advantages of being a progressive Democratic public official in Philadelphia is that you can basically lie your ass off, and then count on the progressive Democratic "journalists" at The Philadelphia Inquirer to cover for you.

Over a six-day period earlier this month, we witnessed some blatant examples of this phenomenon. We're talking about some big lies told by three of the highest ranking officials in the city, as in the mayor, the police commissioner, and the district attorney. 

Let's start with the D.A. On Oct. 13th, District Attorney Larry Krasner showed up at City Council to address a Special Committee on Gun Violence Prevention. With the city heading toward all-time highs in shootings and murders, Krasner was in a pickle because the police department had just laid out some devastating stats that showed what a horrible job Krasner was doing at prosecuting gun crimes. To make matters worse, those stats came directly from the D.A.'s own "Open Data Dashboard." 

The stats showed that the conviction rate in the D.A.'s office for prosecuting gun crimes had fallen from a high of 73% in 2015, when Seth Williams was D.A., all the way down to 35% so far this year under D.A. Krasner. 

Meanwhile, the number of gun crime cases that were either withdrawn or dismissed by the D.A.'s office was headed the other way, going from 17% in 2015, when Seth Williams was D.A., all the way up to 61% this year under D.A. Krasner.

So how did Krasner explain his horrible performance in office at prosecuting gun crimes, as testified to by the stats from his own office? Well, Krasner basically bullshitted those cowed and/or gullible city council members by telling them that they weren't seeing what they were seeing, namely those horrible stats. Then, Krasner told some lies and invented some bogus new stats to cover up what a lousy job he's doing, while people are getting shot and murdered in record numbers.

And nobody at the Inquirer, or the City Council, had the guts to call him on it. 

9

Journalism: Too Important To Leave To Journalists

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Ever wonder how Pennsylvania became the sex abuse capitol of the world?

Jerry Sandusky, Bill Cosby. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia's "Billy Doe" scandal. 

Well there's a common thread among all three scandals that the mainstream media is too corrupt to tell you about, namely overzealous, headline-hunting prosecutors who practice rampant, unconstitutional prosecutorial misconduct, for which there is no penalty.

Think about it. In the Sandusky case, the Pennsylvania state attorney general's office wrote fiction into a grand jury report, about a heinous crime in the showers that never really happened, and then they illegally leaked that report to a useful idiot of a reporter to permanently poison the jury pool.

In the Cosby case, a headline-hunting D.A. in Montgomery County decided to ignore a deal his predecessor had struck with the comedian, so he could orchestrate an unconstitutional trial that would send Cosby to jail after he had already settled the case in the civil courts by paying the alleged victim more than $3 million. 

In the Billy Doe case, a corrupt, headline-hunting Philadelphia D.A. decided to indict three priests and a schoolteacher based on the stories told by a former altar boy who graduated to become a heroin addict and dealer. And then, when the D.A. finally decided to investigate those stories in preparation for trial, the D.A.'s lead detective discovered that none of the stories were true. And when the detective confronted the altar boy, he confessed that he had made it all up. 

Pennsylvania sex scandals are the subject of the latest "Search Warrant" podcast hosted by former NCIS Special Agent John Snedden. The guests include yours truly, pontificating about media bias, and Joseph Stains, a Methodist pastor who wrote a series of articles for The Tribune Democrat of Johnstown entitled, "Reconsidering Sandusky."

2

Holy Hypocrisy! Inky Lawyers Seek To Out Confidential Source!

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Lawyers for The Philadelphia Inquirer, that bastion of free speech, are currently on a mission to root out the identity of a confidential source who leaked embarrassing emails from the newspaper's top management to bigtrial.net.

Those emails, published in an Aug. 2 blog post, revealed that Bill Marimow, the Inquirer's former top editor and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, told his daughter and a trio of friends that he thought Pulitzer-Prize winning architecture critic Inga Saffron's "diatribe" delivered at Stu Bykofsky's going away party was "totally inappropriate," "an unmitigated disaster," as well as "vindictive, mean-spirited and shocking."

At the July 12, 2019 going-away party held in the Inquirer newsroom, Saffron trashed Bykofsky as a sexist, ethically challenged print dinosaur with "a taste for child prostitutes in Thailand." That prompted Byko to file a lawsuit against the Inquirer and Saffron alleging defamation. 

There's a reason why the Inky is pissed about the leaks. The leaked emails not only revealed why Marimow will probably be Bykofsky's star witness when the case goes to trial, but they also disclosed  how the Inquirer's top editors were closely monitoring social media in the aftermath of the going-away party debacle, and engaging in damage control while dealing with a nosy reporter from The Washington Post. Finally, the emails revealed that some top Inky editors were openly rooting for Saffron in her attack on Bykofsky 

Since Big Trial's scoop, lawyers from the Inquirer have struck back by filing written questions known as interrogatories in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court seeking to get Bykofsky to divulge whether he was the confidential source who leaked the emails to Big Trial. In addition, the Inquirer's lawyers are seeking to depose Mark Schwartz, Bykofsky's lawyer, to find out if he was the confidential source.

So on Monday, in a letter to Eli Segal, the Inquirer's lawyer, Schwartz outed himself as the confidential source. In addition, Schwartz took a couple of shots at the city's paper of record for what he described as rank journalistic hypocrisy. 

12

Byko's Star Witness In Inky Defamation Case --Bill Marimow

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

On the afternoon of July 17, 2019, former Inquirer Editor and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Bill Marimow was reading an email from his daughter, Ann.

"Everyone is asking about the Inga Saffron goodbye speech story that's going viral among reporters -- and noting that Dad is featured in the photos," she wrote. "You'll have to fill me in when we talk next."

But Marimow could not wait to give his take on the fireworks that transpired when Saffron, the Inquirer's Pulitzer Prize winning architecture critic, trashed former Daily News and Inquirer columnist Stu Bykofsky at his going-away party as a sexist, ethically challenged print dinosaur with "a taste for child prostitutes in Thailand." 

"Dear Annie," Marimow wrote on the same day that an incendiary story and four video clips from the party were posted on phillymag.com. "Inga assailed Stu in a totally inappropriate way in front of virtually the entire newsroom. It was incredibly tense and at one point, I was concerned that Stu was going to physically accost her." 

"David Preston, who organized the farewell party, invited Inga to speak because he thought that the tension between them was friendly and fake animosity. It turned out to be intense dislike, and David Preston -- along with everyone else present -- was chagrined."

A day later, Philadelphia PR guru Larry Ceisler emailed Marimow to talk about those videos. 

"I saw you in the background of the picture in Philadelphia magazine from the Byko going away party," Ceisler wrote. "Wow, that was really rude of Inga . . . I don't know why anyone would have her speak at a going away party . . . or even a funeral for that matter. Really poor form."

Marimow agreed. "Inga's diatribe was an unmitigated disaster," he wrote. "Vindictive, mean-spirited and shocking. Unbelievable."

6

A Reporter's Rogues Gallery Featuring Tony, Rufus & Larry K.

Dear readers. I've recently updated my website at ralphcipriano.com. It's a reporter's rogues gallery that features some pretty disreputable characters.

The leadoff hitter is none other than His Eminence, the late Cardinal Tony Bevilacqua, who was the leader of a criminal enterprise formerly known as the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. 

While the cardinal's pedophile priests were out molesting and raping innocent children, His Eminence, as he insisted on being called, ran a systematic cover-up that kept his priests out of jail and the church out of the media spotlight, and the courts. 

Brian Tierney, the future publisher of the Inquirer who would bankrupt that newspaper, makes a guest appearance on my website as Cardinal Tony's loyal and devious spinmeister. 

There are plenty of other targets to lampoon. I pay tribute to Rufus Seth Williams, our former corrupt D.A., who, before he went to jail, ran a sex abuse crusade against the Catholic Church. What a great idea. Except that Williams picked as his star witness a lying, scheming altar boy dubbed Billy Doe, who turned out to be a complete fraud. 

But I don't just pick on Philadelphia's corrupt officials. On my website, I've outed all the bad actors in the Commonwealth who completely botched both the civil and criminal investigations at Penn State. It's a toxic waste dump of a case that the Pennsylvania judiciary and the state attorney general's office and the media are still actively engaged in covering up, because they all have their own shameful malpractice to hide.

But the brightest star of my personal rogue's gallery is our current corrupt D.A., Progressive Larry Krasner. On my website I honor Philadelphia's "reform" D.A. with his very own web page. It's a place where I've gathered more than 50 Big Trial scoops documenting Krasner's failures, incompetence and downright malfeasance in office. 

So please feel free to take a look. 

10

Inky Publisher Goes Bonkers Over Systemic Racism

Flickr Commons/Kenny Maths

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

The publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer has served official notice that both she and her newspaper have gone stark raving bonkers over the perceived plague of systemic racism.

In a Sunday column, publisher and CEO Elizabeth "Lisa" Hughes branded her own newspaper as racist for having published a headline last June 2nd that said, "Buildings Matter, Too."

As far as Hughes is concerned, it's a date that will live in infamy because that headline committed the "grievous and unpardonable offense" of offending Black Lives Matter.

Next, reprising Martin Luther's unhappy stint as a monk, Hughes divulged that after a full year of confession, multiple acts of contrition, as well as weekly self-flagellation sessions, she and her entire staff are still trying vainly to cleanse themselves of racism.

And according to Hughes, it's not only the Inquirer that's racist, but so is virtually every other institution in Philadelphia.

And Hughes wants to prove it. In a company-wide email sent out last month, Hughes announced an ambitious new project, "A More Perfect Union," financed by a $1.3 million grant from the Lenfest Institute for Journalism. 

That project will commission a team of journalists to not only root out systemic racism at the Inquirer, Hughes wrote, but also at every major institution founded in Philadelphia that "contributed to historical indifference and antagonism toward Black, brown, and other underserved communities."

15

Krasner Runs From Record Of Futility In Prosecuting Gun Crimes

By Ralph Cipriano

for BigTrial.net

It was like watching a game of pin the tail on the donkey.

For 12 minutes yesterday morning, Fox 29 Good Day hosts Mike Jerrick and Alex Holley tried in vain to pin down District Attorney Larry Krasner on his culpability for the city's raging gun violence.

It's the big issue, actually it's the only issue on May 18th, when the city's registered Democrats go to the polls to elect a candidate in the Democratic primary for District Attorney. And in Philadelphia, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 7 to 1, the May 18th primary is the only election that matters. 

But during the Fox 29 interview, D.A. Larry Krasner did some tap-dancing right out of vaudeville in his attempt to evade all responsibility for the blood in the streets.

Krasner did it by playing with his cat on camera, citing bogus statistics, and launching into diversionary political attacks on Donald Trump, the FOP, the Proud Boys, and Carlos Vega, his opponent in the Democrat primary. Basically, Krasner pulled every stunt he could think of to try and avoid accountability for the failures of his office over the past four years.

But it didn't work. When it comes to the city's record gun violence, the D.A.'s own crime statistics posted on his official office website show that Larry Krasner owns a record of futility and incompetence that should incite voters to throw him out of office.

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