Witness Intimidation

A key associate of convicted drug kingpin Kaboni Savage pleaded guilty yesterday to a witness-intimidation charge, admitting that he and Savage plotted from prison to threaten witnesses and their families in an attempt to keep them from testifying. Dawud Bey, 41, who is already serving a 10-year sentence for dealing drugs, faces an additional 20 years in prison after entering the plea in U.S. District Court. He is scheduled to be sentenced May 27. Bey and Savage, according to court documents, targeted four key witnesses and their families between December 2003 and January 2005.

WHILE I applaud the efforts of local law enforcement and the U.S. attorney in working together to heighten witness participation through the "Step Up, Speak Up" campaign, I fear that unless there is a concrete contribution in the form of substantial funding from the city, violent criminals will continue to succeed in intimidating witnesses from coming forward and testifying. This is why I've proposed a city-funded $2.5 million witness-protection and relocation program that would fight witness intimidation in all its forms.

People who intimidate crime victims and witnesses should pay to help solve the problems they create, City Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. said Wednesday. He proposed to fine people convicted of witness intimidation up to $2,000 and channel the money into a fund to help relocate witnesses who are facing threats. The money would supplement Philadelphia's state-funded witness relocation program, which law enforcement officials said was significantly underfunded. "Witnesses are to justice what gasoline is to automobiles," Jones said in an interview Wednesday.

Saying witness intimidation threatens the administration of justice at the most basic level, Sen. Arlen Specter yesterday introduced legislation to make it a federal crime to threaten, harm, or kill a witness in a local criminal case and to provide tough new penalties. Specter said he was reacting to an Inquirer series that found witness fear to be a factor in virtually every violent-crime prosecution in Philadelphia. "Unless witnesses can be assured they will be protected, the problem of witness intimidation cannot be expected to go away," Specter, a former Philadelphia district attorney, said yesterday on the Senate floor.

The judge did what he could: sentencing Susan Coulter's antagonists, the women who had threatened to kill her and her child because she testified at a double-murder trial. What he could not do was restore Coulter's sense of safety in her neighborhood. "I'm scared for my life," a weeping Coulter told Common Pleas Court Judge Benjamin Lerner on Thursday. "I beg you not to let people like this hurt people. " Lerner tried to reassure Coulter but said there was a limit to what he could do to former neighbors Theresa Merlo and Tara McDowell.

Two Kensington men were sentenced to long prison terms Friday by a Philadelphia judge after being found guilty of witness intimidation done at the request of a neighborhood drug dealer. Leomar Arce, 28, was sentenced to six to 20 years in prison, and Nathaniel McGrath, 20, to a four- to 12-year-term by Common Pleas Court Judge Susan I. Schulman, according to Assistant District Attorney Andrew Notaristefano. Both were convicted by a jury on Oct. 6 involving a scheme by Kensington drug dealer Joseph McGrath - Nathaniel McGrath's uncle - to persuade a man he stomped and seriously injured over a $50 drug debt not to testify.

Calling for long prison terms for criminals who threaten or harm those who would testify against them, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams on Monday introduced legislation to make local witness intimidation a federal crime. "They've been targeting witnesses - we need a federal law to target them," Casey said of the bill that would impose mandatory prison terms of 20 and 30 years for different types of witness intimidation. "Our approach cannot be nuanced," said Williams, adding that "these criminals have to go to jail for a long time.

In a significant step, Mayor Nutter said Thursday that he would commit $200,000 to fight witness intimidation, often cited as a reason many criminals walk free in Philadelphia. Nutter offered the funds as Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. was preparing legislation that would have raised money for that purpose by fining people convicted of threatening witnesses or victims. Jones held his bill after Everett Gillison, the deputy mayor for public safety, informed him that the city would dedicate the $200,000 even as it was struggling with a budget crisis.

The Philadelphia courts are plagued by one the nation's lowest felony conviction rates, often due to witness intimidation. City officials have neither the funding nor the resources to create new identities for people too scared to testify for the prosecution. But a proposal now gaining momentum to have the courts return to the use of secret, indicting grand juries in select criminal cases would provide witnesses with a much-needed measure of anonymity in the early stages of trial proceedings.

Philadelphia should cap off its overhaul of its court system by creating indicting grand juries and trying fugitive defendants in absentia, a veteran former prosecutor said Monday. In a double-barreled presentation to a state Senate advisory panel, Walter M. Phillips Jr. said the moves would crack down on witness intimidation and send a strong signal encouraging defendants to show up for court. Phillips detailed his proposals at the latest session of a volunteer panel of judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers, academics, and other experts established to recommend changes to the Philadelphia courts in response to an Inquirer investigative series, "Justice: Delayed, Dismissed, Denied.

A former New York City man pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Court on Thursday to ordering numerous violent crimes in 2010 as he sought to create a chapter of the Bloods street gang in Norristown. Augustus A. Simmons, 23, of Brooklyn, was immediately sentenced to 25 to 50 years by Judge Thomas C. Branca and taken to Graterford Prison. "I've been doing this a long time, and it's the stiffest sentence I've ever been involved with in which no one was killed," said Assistant District Attorney John N. Gradel.

The judge did what he could: sentencing Susan Coulter's antagonists, the women who had threatened to kill her and her child because she testified at a double-murder trial. What he could not do was restore Coulter's sense of safety in her neighborhood. "I'm scared for my life," a weeping Coulter told Common Pleas Court Judge Benjamin Lerner on Thursday. "I beg you not to let people like this hurt people. " Lerner tried to reassure Coulter but said there was a limit to what he could do to former neighbors Theresa Merlo and Tara McDowell.

Calling for long prison terms for criminals who threaten or harm those who would testify against them, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams on Monday introduced legislation to make local witness intimidation a federal crime. "They've been targeting witnesses - we need a federal law to target them," Casey said of the bill that would impose mandatory prison terms of 20 and 30 years for different types of witness intimidation. "Our approach cannot be nuanced," said Williams, adding that "these criminals have to go to jail for a long time.

IN AN ATTEMPT to help local law-enforcement officials better protect witnesses, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey introduced legislation yesterday that would make witness intimidation a federal crime. Joined by Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams in a news conference at 30th Street Station, Casey said the proposal was spurred in part by the murder Jan. 23 of a clerk at the Caribe Mini Market, in North Philadelphia, after police had questioned her as a witness to a murder in November.

In legislation they said would protect "the sanctity of the criminal justice system," U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams today announced a bill that would make local witness intimidation a federal crime. "They've been targeting witnesses, we need a federal law to target them," Casey said of the bill that could impose mandatory prison terms of 20 and 30 years for different types of witness intimidation. "Our approach cannot be nuanced," said Williams, adding that "these criminals have to go to jail for a long time.

A Virginia woman who made a slashing motion to her throat as a witness in a drug case testified was sentenced to a year and a day for witness intimidation, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced Tuesday. Joanne Elliott, 49, was seen making a slashing motion and using her finger to make circles beside her head while a witness testified in the federal trial of her cousin Eddie Lee "Mo" Walker in March 2011. Walker, of Chester, was the lead defendant in a drug-trafficking case involving 21 defendants who frequented an area in Chester known as "the cut-off.

A Virginia woman was sentenced to a year and a day for witness intimidation, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced Tuesday. Joanne Elliott, 49, was seen making hand gestures, including a slashing motion on the side of her throat, directed at a witness who had just testified in the trial of her cousin Eddie Lee Walker in March 2011. Walker was the lead defendant in a drug trafficking case involving 21 defendants that frequented an area in Chester, Delaware County known as "the cut-off.

Two Kensington men were sentenced to long prison terms Friday by a Philadelphia judge after being found guilty of witness intimidation done at the request of a neighborhood drug dealer. Leomar Arce, 28, was sentenced to six to 20 years in prison, and Nathaniel McGrath, 20, to a four- to 12-year-term by Common Pleas Court Judge Susan I. Schulman, according to Assistant District Attorney Andrew Notaristefano. Both were convicted by a jury on Oct. 6 involving a scheme by Kensington drug dealer Joseph McGrath - Nathaniel McGrath's uncle - to persuade a man he stomped and seriously injured over a $50 drug debt not to testify.