But no one called her, she said.
Withdrawn.
Thomas was dismayed when an Inquirer reporter told her that the charges against Gassew had been dropped. "Those boys robbed a lot of people that night," she said. "A lot of people."
Thomas stopped cleaning bars after that night.
She said it's no wonder people have no faith in the Philadelphia court system. "I lost my confidence in the courts a long time ago," she said. "This just put the icing on the cake."
As for the detectives, they understand what the law demands to take someone's freedom. They also understand the realities of the streets.
"I don't blame the D.A.'s Office for trying to show that this guy was committing a lot of robberies," Conn said. "They made the right choice."
"But to get all those witnesses in court at the same time is not likely to happen."
What prosecutors needed was some luck. They got it in the form of Emily Poe and her friend Christy Zepp, the women who were robbed at the beginning of Gassew's alleged string of robberies.
With those two women poised to testify, Gassew's codefendant Dennison decided to plead guilty.
At Dennison's sentencing hearing in November, his attorney likened Gassew to a pied piper, taking advantage of his client's limited mental capacity to hook him into a robbery spree.
Dennison admitted his role in the robberies that night. He took jewelry and cash, while his partner leveled the gun at the terrified women, said prosecutor Caroline Keating.
"What I did was wrong," Dennison told the judge. He was sent to state prison for four to 10 years.
In laying out the state's case, Keating, who specializes in tackling complicated cases involving repeat offenders, took a moment to emphasize how difficult it had been to win a conviction. "Your Honor, this case took a year, it had three defendants, and took a year to get to the preliminary-hearing stage," Keating said. "Unfortunately, we could not get the witnesses to appear."
Dennison refused to testify against Gassew. And Gassew, a veteran of the system, told detectives he was taking his chances.
Emily Poe has every reason to give up. But she doesn't want to let her friends down; they're cops.
"They told me I had to do it."
When she picked Gassew out in a photo array, she said, "I just knew it was him. I could feel my heart racing just looking at the photo."
Then began the real ordeal. She said she went to court many times.
