PHA allowed to release some billing invoices

A U.S. District Court judge ruled Wednesday that the Philadelphia Housing Authority can give federal investigators invoices for about $1.6 million in billings from three local law firms, but ordered a further review of payments to three other firms.

Judge Anita B. Brody said the agency could release invoices dating to 2007 from Duane Morris L.L.P., Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis L.L.P., and Fox Rothschild L.L.P.

The Housing Authority must review an additional roughly $2.4 million in invoices from the three other firms - Ballard Spahr L.L.P, Flaster Greenberg P.C., and the defunct Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen L.L.P - to determine whether they contained confidential communications between the firms and former PHA Executive Director Carl R. Greene. The judge said five lawsuits that Duane Morris handled also must be reviewed.

Greene was fired in September for failing to tell the PHA board about three settlements of sexual-harassment complaints against him.

The inspector general issued a subpoena in December seeking a representative sampling of the agency's outside legal spending, totaling $38.5 million since 2007.

"The Philadelphia Housing Authority is going to comply with the court's order and is going to do it expeditiously," said PHA's attorney, Barry Gross.

Among the firms affected by Brody's ruling, Ballard Spahr received the most PHA work since 2007, about $11 million.

Wolf Block has been the focus of investigators because one of the attorneys it assigned to the PHA was Sharif Street, son of John F. Street, the PHA board chairman until March. Wolf Block billed PHA $1 million for Sharif Street's work.

The elder Street signed off on paperwork for Wolf Block's PHA contracts at the time his son was being paid by the firm for PHA work, records show.

After John Street's departure, HUD took control of PHA, which agreed to give all the invoices to the Inspector General's Office.

But on April 5, Greene's attorney asked Brody to stop the release, arguing that privileged communications could be compromised.

In her ruling Wednesday, Brody wrote that Greene had recently agreed that certain invoices could be turned over to the inspector general.

Brody still must rule on a broader issue of whether the PHA can release details on another $34 million in legal spending that was not part of the subpoena.

In a separate lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter dismissed the complaint filed by a former PHA worker who contended she was forced to contribute to a fund for lobbying and parties for PHA officials. She said the agency violated her rights by forcing her to make the payments.

Last week, independent of the court action, PHA began repaying $110,000 that it had collected from the employees, starting in 2006 and continuing until after Greene was fired.