A federal judge suggested actions by DA Larry Krasner’s office in a controversial case could amount to crimes

A federal judge on Thursday said actions city prosecutors took in a controversial post-conviction case could ultimately amount to perjury, conspiracy, or obstruction of justice — a stunning suggestion that inserted the threat of potential criminal consequences into a matter that has already roiled District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office.

U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond did not say whom he was referring to when he made that remark during an unusual hearing in his courtroom. But he raised the issue while an assistant district attorney was testifying about conversations she had with Krasner about the case, in which she said Krasner told her to “protect the office” and, by extension, violate her ethical obligations as a lawyer.

“If what they say is true,” Diamond said, “potential wrongdoing abounds.”

Diamond, as a judge, does not have the ability to file criminal charges himself. But his remarks from the bench were another new development in the case, which had already featured a host of explosive accusations about how prosecutors have behaved while determining whether a man’s murder conviction should be overturned.

And it was not the only notable moment during Thursday’s hearing.

During a full day of testimony, three prosecutors made a series of striking statements about the interoffice drama behind the case. And some of their assertions directly accused Krasner of questionable conduct.

Assistant District Attorney Katherine Ernst said Krasner repeatedly told her and others to protect the office and avoid additional scrutiny from the courts. She and colleague Steven Wildberger also said Krasner threatened “consequences” — which they believed to be potential firings — for those who resisted his preferred method of handling it.

Krasner also rejected their advice to ask the state attorney general’s office to take the lead on the matter, they said, because, according to Ernst, Krasner “hated” everyone in that office and said “everybody in that [office] is Nazis.”

And all three prosecutors said Krasner and another supervisor, Matthew Stiegler, tried to persuade them to effectively find a way to protect Stiegler’s reputation at the expense of a prosecutor he supervised, Jaclyn Mason.

As Ernst recalled it, Stiegler said he wanted to make it seem as if any mistakes in the case were “100% [Mason’s] fault and 0% his fault.”

In Ernst’s view, the events demonstrated that Krasner cared “more about the reputation of the office than competently handling this case.”

Wildberger said he was so disillusioned that he stepped down as a leader of the law division to move to a different unit because “I have lost faith in the administration of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.”

The testimony from Ernst, Wildberger, and their colleague David Napiorski served as an extended rebuke of the office where all three still work. Ernst at one point acknowledged that some of her relationships in the office have become “icy.”

Ernst and Wildberger accused Krasner in court documents last month of some of the conduct they testified about Thursday.

Krasner’s office responded by saying their filings were unauthorized and “ill-informed.” He also said that he had taken steps to alleviate their concerns with how the case was being handled, and that they were in no position to comment on behalf of his office.

The prosecution at issue is the conviction of Dennis Johnson for second-degree murder. In 2009, a jury found Johnson guilty of fatally shooting Kenyatta Smith during a robbery outside a North Philadelphia convenience store two years earlier. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Johnson appealed, in part because he said his trial attorney was ineffective. And in 2022, Mason filed court documents agreeing with one of his post-conviction petitions and saying Johnson’s conviction should be overturned.

But this spring, Ernst and some of her colleagues reviewed the case and took the opposite view, saying they had discovered clear and important errors in Mason’s brief. They then took the unusual step of filing another brief to ask that Mason’s recommendation be withdrawn.

In the days after that development, Mason resigned, a decision she later said was an attempt to protect herself from what she viewed as a plot to turn her into a scapegoat.

Ernst and her colleagues denied that they were seeking to blame Mason. And in the weeks after Mason’s resignation, Ernst said, she and other supervisors got into an extended series of arguments with Krasner over how to handle the situation — which is what formed the basis of much of their testimony Thursday.

Most of the disputes concerned whether the office should recuse itself from handling Johnson’s case at all. Ernst said she repeatedly tried to get Krasner to let the attorney general’s office take over the case because the internal discussions had veered into areas of self-interest rather than the merits of the case.

Krasner consistently refused, she said. And Wildberger said Krasner once grew “apoplectic” when they attempted to memorialize their concerns in writing, because that would make their memos and emails potentially discoverable in future litigation.

Wildberger said Krasner threatened “consequences” if they continued to resist his preferred method of proceeding, which was to hire an outside lawyer to handle the matter on the office’s behalf.

But neither Wildberger nor Ernst saw that path as appropriate, and last month both signed on to a brief before Diamond saying they could no longer participate in the case because of their ongoing debates with Krasner.

Diamond paused Thursday’s hearing in the middle of Napiorski’s testimony. He plans to continue the proceedings next week.

He has not ordered Krasner to testify.

Krasner said it would violate ethical rules to comment while the hearing remains ongoing.

“As much as I would like to speak right now,” he said, “my comments will have to come at a later time.”