Krasner and his top deputy allegedly pressured staffers to violate the law in order to have a murder conviction thrown out.
A federal judge has referred Philadelphia’s liberal District Attorney Larry Krasner to the Justice Department for an investigation into whether he and a top deputy pressured prosecutors to lie in court in an effort to have a murder conviction thrown out.
U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond of Philadelphia penned a 40-page memo, released Tuesday, that ordered both Soros-backed Krasner and Assistant District Attorney Matthew Stiegler removed from the relitigation of the 2009 murder case.
Diamond wrote he had “reluctantly concluded that Philadelphia’s highest law enforcement official and one of his top assistants may have violated the law” after he heard testimony accusing the pair of undertaking a pressure campaign against employees in Krasner’s office who raised conflict of interest concerns involving Stiegler.
Staffers who shared the conflict of interest concerns were threatened with “consequences,” Diamond wrote.
Diamond writes that the allegations against the pair would amount to perjury, obstruction of justice, false statements under oath and conspiracy.
Krasner dismissed the allegations in a statement.
“I respectfully and vigorously disagree,” he said. “I look forward to appealing to the higher court as soon as the law allows.”
At the center of the alleged conflict of interest is a case involving Dennis Johnson, who was found guilty of second-degree murder in 2009 for the killing of Kenyatta Smith. Johnson, who was sentenced in November 2010 to life imprisonment, is looking to have his murder conviction thrown out.
A former assistant district attorney under Krasner, Jaclyn Mason, filed a petition for Johnson’s release in November 2022, saying he had received ineffective legal representation during the trial.
Stiegler, who assigned the case to Mason, allegedly did not instruct her to perform any independent investigation into the circumstances of the trial, according to Diamond’s memo, which says Stiegler had already decided to ask for Johnson’s release after consulting Johnson’s new attorney and the local chapter of the Innocence Project.
“Indeed, contrary to the Defender’s advice, he assigned an inexperienced ADA to Johnson, making it more likely that she would not question his actions or order,” writes Diamond, who notes Mason had a background in patent and trademark law and “no experience as a criminal litigator.”
But earlier this year, Krasner’s office moved to withdraw the petition, days after Mason resigned from her post. In attempting to withdraw the petition, Krasner’s office cited “material misstatements” made by Mason.
Stiegler blamed the misstatements on Mason, saying that she “‘had purposefully inserted the false facts’ and that ‘this was one hundred percent her fault, zero percent his fault,’” according to Diamond.
“These material omissions and falsehoods may well amount to perjury,” Diamond wrote of the false statements included in the brief filed by Mason. “Moreover, in urging that others lie to me, Stiegler might be liable for obstruction of justice. Mr. Krasner’s actions are more troubling. He did not simply learn of the Stiegler proposal; he urged the Law Division supervisors—who serve at Mr. Krasner’s pleasure—to implement it and to present a false narrative to the Court.”
Mason wrote in her resignation letter that Stiegler had “used me to further his personal agenda of conceding in federal habeas cases regardless of the merits” and claimed she had “been asked to fall on my sword.”
Krasner apparently told the line prosecutors behind the withdrawal motion that Stiegler “gave me this really good idea. I think that we should go through Ms. Mason’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,” according to Diamond’s memo.
But the prosecutors told Krasner he should refer the issue to the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General (OAG). Krasner then apparently told them that “we can’t send it to OAG because essentially they’re all evil” and “we have to have somebody in the room, in the courtroom to protect the office.”
Doubling down, Krasner said there would be “consequences” if the prosecutors informed the court about Stiegler’s conflict, specifically that he had “a reputational interest in not doing a full investigation” into issues with the release petition.