Gilson

The body of a Marlton carpenter was recovered yesterday from the Delaware River, where he had been swimming and fishing with friends over the weekend. Gilson V. Desouza, 24, was swept away by swift currents Saturday afternoon about a quarter-mile north of the Scudders Falls Bridge, just south of Washington Crossing State Park, officials said. "They were making their way across to a small island," New Jersey Trooper Adam Wrede said. Desouza was wading in the river and entered an area that was deeper - about 15 feet deep - when he was pulled under and away by the current, police said.

Let it now be recorded in the annals of the U.S. justice system: a Philadelphia trial has ended in mistrial by eyeball. It was the assault trial Commonwealth v. Brunelli, involving an early morning fight outside the New Princeton Tavern in Burholme where one punch cost John Huttick his left eye. Huttick, 48, was on the witness stand Wednesday, weeping as he told the Common Pleas Court jury about the impact of losing an eye when he literally lost...

Luis Alicea, 19, decided to go straight two years ago. He got tired of seeing the violence associated with drug trafficking, and told friends he wanted to quit a drug organization. Alicea, who had been a street corner dealer, said he planned to go to school and make something of his life. Unfortunately, he never got the chance. His drug boss allegedly shot and killed him as punishment for his decision to walk away from the illegal business, said Assistant District Attorney Mark Gilson.

John Gray may get away with murder, the prosecutor said. Assistant District Attorney Mark Gilson said he ransacked the records in the case of the reputed slumlord to see if there were grounds to appeal a judge's ruling that Gray, 63, is incompetent to stand trial in six fire deaths at a West Philadelphia building he operated. Gilson reluctantly concluded there was none. Yesterday, Gilson told Common Pleas Judge Carolyn E. Temin that her ruling is not appealable. Gray was awaiting trial in six third-degree murder counts because he allegedly failed to correct building code violations before a fire in the apartment building on 42nd Street near Lancaster Avenue on April 5, 1997.

Cops called the accused killer a lot of names in his day - by his own choice. The man has used 18 separate names after arrests, said Assistant District Attorney Mark Gilson. Yesterday, two lawyers showed up for the guy's preliminary hearing, sure that each represented him. The defendant will have to name one. Court officials are not certain what name to use on the dockets. "I know him as Fred," said attorney Anthony E. Stefanski, an associate of attorney A. Charles Peruto Jr. Attorney Arnold Silverstein thinks his client is Wilfredo Lopez Martinez.

Kareem "Boo" Morefield had a good reason for putting up half of Charles "Chip" Alexander's $100,000 bail after Alexander was arrested for a contract killing last year, said the prosecutor. Morefield, 22, of Norris Street near 23rd, had hired Alexander to kill the victim, Benjamin "Marco" Singleton, 21, of Van Pelt Street near Berks, on April 21, 1998, said Assistant District Attorney Mark Gilson. Gilson said Morefield failed in his own attempt to murder Singleton in 1997, and was afraid of retaliation.

The accused bank robbers charged in the killing of Philadelphia Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski had planned to hold up the bank the night before, but one of the three original conspirators got cold feet when he discovered he didn't have a Muslim disguise like the others, prosecutors said yesterday. The new details about the bank robbery and its aftermath emerged after a court hearing for one of the men who allegedly had plotted to take part but was forced out before the plan was executed.

There was no stopping Mildred Jones. Not even nine bullets. Jones, 34, survived being shot nine times last July in an apparent effort to silence her. Instead, she appeared at this week's trial for Angelo "Low" Romero, 21, and helped to convict the drug dealer of fatally shooting a rival dealer, Wesley Baxter, 33, inside a home on Arlington Street near Ringgold in North Philadelphia. Baxter died about three weeks after the shooting last May 26. A jury found Romero, of Ogden Street near 11th, guilty of first-degree murder, and Common Pleas Judge John J. Poserina Jr. sentenced him to a life prison term.

Whatshisname was convicted of first-degree murder by a jury yesterday. No one was really sure what the 51-year-old man's real name is because he's been arrested 29 times under 18 different names, has listed 15 addresses, four dates of birth and three Social Security numbers. It won't matter much; he'll soon have a number. The North Philadelphia man has 15 convictions. He failed to show in court on eight prior occasions. "By the time the trial was over, we were calling him Mr. Torres," said Assistant District Attorney Mark Gilson.

Rap singer Bryant Kirk lost his life mixing drugs and music in Philadelphia. Kirk, 28, was shot and robbed last June of $25,000 after he arrived at the corner of 11th Street and Nedro Avenue to buy drugs and to deliver a demonstration record to a neighborhood man, said Assistant District Attorney Mark Gilson. Kirk, of Pennsauken, N.J., died the next day in a hospital. This week, after a preliminary hearing before Municipal Judge Louis G. F. Retacco, Thomas Stallings, 30, of Marvine Street near Champlost, was ordered to face the music for luring Kirk to his death.

NO BODY PARTS came tumbling out, but there was still plenty of drama Wednesday in Common Pleas Court as the aggravated-assault retrial of Matthew Brunelli unfolded. Prosecutors have accused Brunelli, 23, of punching onetime bouncer John "Big Red" Huttick in the left eye with an object - possibly a car key - outside a Burholme bar on Aug. 18, 2011, leaving Huttick with a gruesome wound that ultimately caused the eyeball to be removed. A mistrial was granted in February after Huttick's glass eye shockingly popped out while he wept on the witness stand.

Let it now be recorded in the annals of the U.S. justice system: A Philadelphia trial has ended in mistrial by eyeball. It was in the assault trial Commonwealth v. Brunelli, involving an early morning fight outside the New Princeton Tavern in Burholme where one punch cost John Huttick his left eye. Huttick, 48, was on the witness stand Wednesday, weeping as he told the Common Pleas Court jury about the impact of losing an eye, when he literally...

Let it now be recorded in the annals of the U.S. justice system: a Philadelphia trial has ended in mistrial by eyeball. It was the assault trial Commonwealth v. Brunelli, involving an early morning fight outside the New Princeton Tavern in Burholme where one punch cost John Huttick his left eye. Huttick, 48, was on the witness stand Wednesday, weeping as he told the Common Pleas Court jury about the impact of losing an eye when he literally lost...

Thomas F. Gilson Sr., 83, of Northeast Philadelphia, an assistant district attorney who prosecuted welfare fraud and helped create a program that gave first-time offenders a second chance, died Tuesday of heart failure at his home. When he became an assistant district attorney in 1969, Mr. Gilson was assigned to a program assisting detectives in police districts. In the 1970s, he helped establish and supervise the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD) program. The program allows defendants who meet certain criteria to have their police records expunged.

During two violent weeks in December, police say, it seemed as though Nasuil Martinez tried to kill every cop he came up against. First, while fleeing a traffic stop with a stolen gun, the 20-year-old Kensington man shot a North Philadelphia patrol officer in the shoulder. Then, 12 days later, he fired at five SWAT officers during a standoff in a dark Oxford Circle basement, hitting one officer square in his helmet and another in the middle of his Kevlar vest. He narrowly missed a third, police said.

David Nam's long-running effort to escape trial for a 1996 killing during a botched Olney home invasion came to a close yesterday with a jury verdict that would put him in prison for the rest of his life. Nam, 32, apparently led a law-abiding life after he forfeited $1 million bail and fled to South Korea in 1998. He married, had three children, and worked as an English teacher at a private school near Seoul. But that life ended at 3:20 p.m. yesterday, when a Common Pleas Court jury of eight women and four men found him guilty of second-degree murder in the Aug. 16, 1996, killing of Anthony Schroeder, 77, a retired Acme Markets warehouse worker.

Bolla Mam was 14 when he first met David Nam sometime after midnight on Aug. 16, 1996, at an Olney backyard get-together. Yesterday, Mam saw Nam for the second time, 20 feet away across a Philadelphia courtroom. This time, the now 28-year-old was prepared to testify about how Nam - who lived as a fugitive in South Korea for nearly a decade - led him and two others in a botched home-invasion robbery that ended in the death of a retired warehouse worker. "That's 'Solid,' " Mam replied, using Nam's erstwhile nickname, when Assistant District Attorney Mark Gilson asked if he could identify the defendant.

Tonya Stephens' attorney quoted Tammy Wynette and said she did nothing more than stand by her man. Yesterday, still standing, Stephens was escorted from a Philadelphia courtroom to begin a four- to eight-year prison term for helping her fugitive boyfriend - charged in last year's killing of Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski - evade police for five days after the veteran officer's shooting on May 3, 2008. "What do you have to say for yourself?" Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart asked Stephens.

A North Philadelphia woman was found guilty yesterday of hindering the apprehension of a fugitive and criminal conspiracy for helping her boyfriend, one of the men charged in last year's killing of Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski. Tonya Stephens, who also goes by the name Juanita Stephens, was convicted of the charges by Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey Minehart after a brief trial. The judge acquitted her on a charge of criminal conspiracy. Liczbinski was gunned down while pursuing Stevens' boyfriend, Eric Floyd, and two other men after a May 3, 2008, robbery at a Bank of America branch inside a ShopRite supermarket in the city's Port Richmond section.

The accused bank robbers charged in the killing of Philadelphia Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski had planned to hold up the bank the night before, but one of the three original conspirators got cold feet when he discovered he didn't have a Muslim disguise like the others, prosecutors said yesterday. The new details about the bank robbery and its aftermath emerged after a court hearing for one of the men who allegedly had plotted to take part but was forced out before the plan was executed.