Ex-cop facing obstruction charges dies

A FORMER Philadelphia police officer who was charged with making a false report and related offenses in a bizarre case that involved his wife has died, a prosecutor told a judge Tuesday.

"Robert Penn is deceased," Assistant District Attorney Sybil Murphy told Municipal Judge William Austin Meehan Jr. on Tuesday, when Penn, 48, was scheduled to face a preliminary hearing.

Murphy said afterward that she did not know the cause of Penn's death.

A report from the Medical Examiner's Office indicated that Penn was pronounced dead at Nazareth Hospital, in Northeast Philadelphia, at 5:40 p.m. Sept. 5.

Penn's mother, Patricia Penn, and his attorney, Thomas Burke, said in separate interviews afterward that they believe the stress from being criminally charged and losing his job contributed to his death.

Penn's criminal charges stemmed from a March 2, 2014, incident outside his then-home in Overbrook Park, where he was shot in the back of his shoulder while in his driveway. He had just returned home from his shift in Powelton's 16th District. It was just after midnight.

Penn told cops that he didn't see who shot him, but that the gunman growled, "This is for your wife."

Robert Penn was married to Jennifer Penn, the administrative lieutenant in Point Breeze's 17th District. Murphy has said there is no evidence Jennifer Penn was involved in the shooting.

The couple - then estranged - were still living together at the time Robert Penn was shot. At some point last year, an anonymous male caller left a voice mail with the Daily News saying that Jennifer Penn had hired him to shoot her husband and make it look like an armed robbery.

The Daily News gave the voice mail to detectives, who identified Charles Mays, of West Philly, a friend of Robert Penn, as the caller. Mays then told investigators he didn't shoot Penn, did not collude with Penn's wife and had called the Daily News at Penn's request, Murphy has said.

On July 14, Robert Penn and Mays, now 50, were arrested and charged with misdemeanor offenses of obstructing the administration of law, making false reports to law-enforcement authorities and conspiracy.

Penn was suspended from work for 30 days with the intent to dismiss.

Then, on Aug. 16, Penn collapsed in his mother's home on Rugby Street in East Mount Airy, where he had been living since about mid-March 2014.

"He fell into a coma," Patricia Penn, 70, said Tuesday. "He never really opened his eyes." He also didn't talk again, she said.

She was home at the time and found him. "He had severe brain damage, had bleeding on the brain," she said.

She said her son "was taken to Chestnut Hill Hospital, where they couldn't do anything for him," then was taken by helicopter to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, and his blood "pressure shot up to 240."

He was at Jefferson until Sept. 4, then transferred to the Deer Meadows Rehabilitation Center on Roosevelt Boulevard in Northeast Philadelphia, she said. The next day, he was transferred to nearby Nazareth Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The mother contended the stresses her son was experiencing - from being criminally charged, from having been shot last year, from his estranged wife - "almost definitely" caused her son's death.

Burke contended his client was wrongfully charged. Having lost his job and possibly losing his pension "put a lot of stress on" Robert Penn, the lawyer said.

"He was very distraught when he got charged and lost his job," Burke said. "I did tell him I thought he would be exonerated."

Burke said he did not know what, if anything, his client had told Mays to do.

But, he said, "even if he did have Mr. Mays call the Daily News, that's not a crime," Burke said, noting that the offense of making a false report refers in the crime code to making a false report to law enforcement. The Daily News is not law enforcement, he said.

Similarly, Burke said with regard to the obstruction charge that Penn did not prevent any law-enforcement officer from doing his or her duty.

Murphy contended afterward, "The commonwealth believes it has charged appropriately both Charles Mays and Robert Penn."

The criminal case against Penn will now be closed, she said.

As for Mays, his preliminary hearing was postponed to Dec. 4. Murphy told the judge Tuesday that she and Mays' public defender would like more time for discussions for a possible "nontrial disposition," indicating Mays could end up pleading guilty.

As for who had shot Robert Penn, that remains a mystery.

"Unfortunately, we may never find out," Murphy said Tuesday. She said there are no new leads.

Even though authorities have found no evidence to link Jennifer Penn to the shooting, Burke said his client believed she was behind it. When asked if Robert Penn could have shot himself, Burke said no, stressing that Penn was shot in the back of his shoulder.

Jennifer Penn could not be reached Tuesday. A woman who answered the phone at the 17th District said she was not there.

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