Northwest Coalition backs Krasner for DA

Philadelphia District Attorney candidate Larry Krasner secured the endorsement of members of the influential group of elected officials, including former City Councilwoman Marian Tasco, on Monday.

Meanwhile, candidate Tariq El-Shabazz spoke out against a scathing report about him published last week. The events are some of the latest in Philadelphia’s high-stakes D.A. race.

The endorsement for Krasner follows news last week on the receipt of nearly $300,000 in advertisement funding for Krasner from billionaire investor George Soros.

Krasner has already received progressive endorsements from local unions including AFSCME District 1199C which represents hospital and health care employees, local social justice organizations like 215 People’s Alliance and national organizations including MoveOn.org.

However the support from Tasco, state Rep. Isabella Fitzgerald, 10th ward leader and Elaine Tomlin, 42nd ward leader — members of what’s known as the Northwest Coalition — could be the crossover civil rights attorney Krasner needs to reach a substantial bit of Philadelphia’s historic voter population.

The Northwest Coalition represents a large region of Philadelphia “super voters,” or voters who have consistently cast ballots in most elections. According to a map by Econsult Solutions, a Philadelphia-based economic consulting firm, wards in Northwest had high voter turn out for the D.A.’s race in 2009, the year Seth Williams was elected and have had relatively high turnout in 2005, 2009 and 2013 D.A. primary elections.

Mayor Jim Kenney’s victory is a recent example of the Coalition’s power. Running against a well-known Black candidate, Kenney won the 2015 primary over state Sen. Anthony Williams after receiving the support of several of Coalition members including Tasco, Councilwoman Cherelle Parker and now-Congressman Dwight Evans. At the time, Newswork reporter Dave Davies called it “historic.”

Councilwomen Parker and Maria Quiñones Sánchez also endorsed Krasner on Monday.

Another recent issue in the race for the top law official of Philadelphia emerged late last week when City and State PA published a report depicting El-Shabazz — the only African-American candidate in the contest — as a high-paid but incompetent attorney whom two federal judges ruled contributed to convictions for one of El-Shabazz’s clients.

According to the report, family for Anthony Brown retained El-Shabazz to represent Brown in a 1998 homicide case.

In Brown’s case, El-Shabazz failed to investigate his client’s alibi, lost the first private investigator he’d hired due to a financial dispute, and hired a second private investigator less than a week before the trial, according to the report.

It cited a failure by El-Shabazz to introduce an alibi petition before the deadline, disqualifying two key witnesses for the defense.

El-Shabazz told The Tribune on Monday he was called and did testify in a hearing for the Anthony Brown case but said it was not his understanding the judges found his actions contributed to Brown’s conviction.

“They did find that they believed he had relief and the case was appealed to the Third Circuit and the Third Circuit agreed with all the other courts,” he said.

Brown exhausted his appeal attempts and is still in prison.

Kathleen Martin, head of the D.A. Office’s Conviction Integrity Unit said the unit did receive a submission from Anthony Brown on April 3 and that his request to have his conviction reviewed is in queue. Martin was unable to provide a timeline of when the unit would begin reviewing the request.

While the article said El-Shabazz declined to be interviewed for the story, El-Shabazz said he needed Brown to return a letter waiving attorney-client privilege, which Brown said he never received.

El-Shabazz blasted the reporter, Ryan Briggs, and City & State PA, calling the writer racist in a response letter posted to his campaign’s social media site soon after the article was published. City & State is a multi-media news organization that covers Pennsylvania’s state and local government, political and advocacy news.

“It is widely known that Mr. Briggs is in the pocket of those in our community who seek to inject their racist views into this important race,” El-Shabazz said in the statement.

He added in his interview with The Tribune, “What I was saying and still say and stand by saying is that the coverage, with the exception of a few, including this paper, of Tariq El-Shabazz in the course of this race has been all negative.”

In an emailed response, City & State PA editor Gregory Salisbury defended the publication and Briggs.

“We vigorously deny any accusation or allegation of racial bias against any member of City & State PA staff, and reject any claim that any member of our staff is ‘in the pocket’ of anyone,” Salisbury said. “We stand by Ryan’s story, which took months of meticulous, in-depth reporting to produce.”

There are seven Democratic D.A. candidates in the May 16 primary election. The crowded field includes former City Managing Director Rich Negrin, former federal prosecutor Joe Khan, former assistant district attorney Michael Untermeyer, civil rights attorney Larry Krasner, former first deputy district attorney Tariq El-Shabazz, former assistant district attorney Jack O’Neill and municipal court Judge Teresa Carr Deni, all Democrats. Beth Grossman, another former Assistant District Attorney, is the only Republican in the race.