Sheriff Rochelle Bilal’s new undersheriff has resigned just three months into the job
George Gossett Jr. was hired by Sheriff Rochelle Bilal in June to help streamline the struggling office. He has already left to “pursue opportunities in the private sector.”
Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal’s new second-in-command has left the job — three months after he arrived.
Undersheriff George Gossett Jr., whom Bilal hired in June as part of what she’d described as a major “reorganization and modernization” initiative, confirmed Monday that he had resigned from the job effective last Friday.
Bilal’s office has been hit with three court orders since 2024 seeking to correct alleged mismanagement, most recently in May over delays in processing deeds of properties won at auction.
Gossett said through a spokesperson that he is “excited to pursue opportunities in the private sector,” but provided no other explanation for his short tenure.
The Roxborough-based lawyer and former assistant district attorney was tapped in June at an annual salary of $185,000, weeks after a Common Pleas judge ordered Bilal to fix its sheriff sale process or face consequences.
According to a news release Bilal issued that month, Gossett was to “oversee daily operations, strategic planning initiatives, personnel management, and operational coordination across the agency.”
“This reorganization is about building a stronger organization for the future,” Bilal said at the time.
It is unclear where that plan now stands, with the new undersheriff having already departed.
Gossett is the fourth undersheriff to serve Bilal since she took office in 2020. Bilal and her spokesperson, Teresa Lundy, declined to provide any details about why her top deputy would leave so soon after he took the job.
Sources in the office said the pair did not see eye-to-eye, and that Gossett was said to have made a remark about Bilal’s “anger management” issues, which may have escalated the situation.
Separately, Bilal last week fired Mark Wilson, the office’s co-director of real estate. Wilson declined to comment.
Five employees who spoke to The Inquirer recently have described the office as increasingly chaotic. “That place is a madhouse,” said one person who like the others asked not be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Gossett’s predecessors also had rocky terms in the sheriff’s office.
In August 2020, seven months into the job, Undersheriff Sommer Miller resigned after she said she was retaliated against for reporting alleged theft in the advertising department, unauthorized spending of public funds, and instances of extreme sexual harassment. She later claimed in a whistleblower lawsuit that Bilal had been “reading and monitoring her emails in real time.”
Miller’s replacement, Undersheriff Curtis Douglas left in May 2021, about a week after reports that Bilal’s office had botched a contract meant to move sheriff sales to an online platform. A spokesperson at the time described Douglas’ departure as a planned retirement.
In May 2026, Undersheriff Tariq El-Shabazz, a criminal defense attorney who came to personally oversee the handling of deeds related to sheriff sales, also retired. He left one day after the most recent court order dropped.
Under Bilal, who was elected as a reformer in 2019, the sale of foreclosed and tax-delinquent properties have been mired in post-auction delays, with winning bidders waiting a year or more to get their deeds.
Many auctions were halted altogether between 2021 and 2024. Court security and inmate transportation, two other key functions of the office, have also been recurring problems, with judges saying they have felt unsafe.
In addition to Gossett, Bilal recently hired William A. Brownlee Sr. as part of the office restructuring earlier this year.
Brownlee, a West Philadelphia pastor, motivational speaker, real estate investor and entrepreneur with a checkered financial history, has previously described himself on his website and social media as the office’s “Deputy Chief Financial Officer.” His website has since gone dark, and Bilal’s office said Brownlee currently serves as project manager. Payroll records show he earns $95,000 a year.
Another new hire is Steven A. Wakefield, a former Law Department attorney serving as Bilal’s deputy undersheriff in charge of deed compliance. He’s being paid $120,000 a year.
Wakefield took the stand last month and told Common Pleas Court Judge Paula Patrick, supervisor of the court’s commerce division, that the office had previously misplaced records and lost track of the distribution of some auction proceeds. Wakefield blamed the dysfunction on a since-terminated employee, who allegedly concealed the problem from Bilal.
Bilal did not testify at the hearing. Her city-appointed lawyer had filed a motion seeking to keep her off the stand, saying the sheriff had “limited personal knowledge” of how sheriff sales work.
Wakefield said that he had enacted operational reforms, speeding the deed issuance process while largely clearing out a backlog of deeds from earlier sales.
Even so, Patrick took the rare step of imposing six months of outside supervision of sheriff sales.
That independent monitor has yet to be appointed.
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