Judge refers Philadelphia’s progressive district attorney to DOJ for prosecution

By Kara Scannell, CNN

(CNN) — A federal judge referred Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and one of his top prosecutors to the Justice Department for potential obstruction of justice, perjury and false statements tied to the recent review of a 2009 murder conviction.

Late Tuesday, Judge Paul Diamond, a George W. Bush appointee, said after a review of evidence and testimony that he “reluctantly concluded that Philadelphia’s highest law enforcement official and one of his top assistants may have violated the law.”

In a highly unusual internal struggle, four top prosecutors in the office alleged that Krasner and the chief of the conviction integrity unit, Matthew Stiegler, were conflicted because they were trying to protect their own reputation rather than candidly explain to the judge why they were withdrawing a motion in support of reviewing the conviction.

“The credible evidence is tantamount to a prima facie showing of conduct that may constitute false statements, false declarations made under oath, perjury, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy,” the judge wrote in a 40-page opinion referring the conduct to the US attorney’s office in Philadelphia. He also disqualified Krasner and Stiegler from the underlying case.

Krasner, a former civil rights attorney, has built a reputation as one of the nation’s most progressive district attorneys.

“I respectfully and vigorously disagree with the court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law,” he said in a statement. “I look forward to appealing to the higher court as soon as the law allows. This remains a pending matter, which limits for now my and my office’s ability to respond in the media.”

Stiegler could not be reached. A representative for the US attorney’s office declined to comment.

Diamond highlighted several of Krasner’s alleged actions, including accusations that he ordered senior prosecutors to place blame for errors on a junior prosecutor, failed to reveal the breadth of the errors to the judge, and then stated there would be “consequences” for the senior prosecutors who wanted to alert the court to the conflict issues.

A decades-old conviction

The actions stem from a review of the second-degree murder conviction of Dennis Johnson, who in 2010 was sentenced to life in prison. Fifteen years later, key witnesses recanted, and Johnson sought to have his conviction overturned arguing ineffective counsel.

The DA’s office agreed after Stiegler spoke directly with the defense team and put a junior prosecutor in charge of the case to carry out his instructions to concede, the judge found.

In preparation for a hearing, four supervisors reviewed the files and one of them said that Johnson’s argument was “not a winning claim” and a legal filing submitted by the junior prosecutor to the court contained “very significant errors,” according to the order.

The junior prosecutor who drafted the concession brief at the direction of Stiegler was asked to withdraw the filing and take responsibility with the judge, according to the order. The junior prosecutor instead resigned and, according to the order, wrote in her resignation letter to Krasner that Stiegler had “used me to further his personal agenda of conceding” in cases where the lawfulness of someone’s detention is in dispute, “regardless of the merits.”

After the resignation, Stiegler lobbied the four senior prosecutors to place blame for the questionable filing on the junior prosecutor, the judge found.

The four senior prosecutors met with Krasner.

According to the judge’s order, Kranser told the prosecutors, “[S]omeone gave me a really good idea. Actually, it was Matt, Mr. Stiegler, that gave me this really good idea. I think that we should go through [the junior prosecutor’s] cases, find mistakes that she made in other cases, say that this was a pattern by her, and then file something with the Court saying that.”

The judge found that the prosecutors objected and suggested Krasner refer the case to the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office because of a conflict.

Krasner called the attorney general’s office “evil” and stated they needed to have someone in the room to “protect the office,” according to the order. In another meeting where the issue of referring the case came up, supervisors told the judge that Krasner called everyone in the AG’s office “Nazis.”

Krasner refused to send the case to the attorney general’s office, and wanted someone in his office to prepare a memorandum urging the judge to not hold a hearing into the office’s decision to withdraw the concession motion.

Three of the senior prosecutors wrote a memo to Krasner stating, “[W]e believe DA Krasner is conflicted because he has conferred with ADA Stiegler about this case.”

According to the judge’s order, one of the prosecutors said that Krasner “said he doesn’t really care about the merits, he would want the person handling the case to not do a full investigation, and he seemed to be caring more about the reputation of the office than about competently handling this case.”

Krasner replied using his chief of staff’s email address. In the email, according to the order, Krasner acknowledged that he wanted to “protect the office,” but the phrase was taken out of context.

The senior prosecutors presented Krasner with a draft letter referring the case to the attorney general’s office. Krasner was “apoplectic,” one of the supervisors told the judge. After they told him they would have to notify the judge if the case was not referred, Krasner told them there would be “consequences” if they carried that out, according to the judge.

Ultimately, the prosecutors filed to withdraw their earlier motion, which prompted the judge’s inquiry. Diamond said Krasner declined to testify or submit an affidavit.

“Mr. Krasner does not wish to give this Court a truthful account of how the Concession came to be even though his duty to the Court requires him to do so,” the judge wrote.

“He thus sought to direct the very lawyers obligated by law to correct the Concession’s errors to do just the opposite,” Diamond wrote, adding, “Even worse, when told that the Four believed they had to alert me, Mr. Krasner responded that ‘there would be consequences for [one of the prosecutors] if she alerted the Court to the conflict issue,’ and that there would be consequences ‘if anyone did.’”

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