A federal judge has referred Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and senior prosecutor Matthew Stiegler to the U.S. Attorney’s Office after testimony in a murder-conviction case raised concerns about possible perjury, conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
A federal judge on Tuesday referred Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and one of his senior deputies to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for possible investigation after concluding that evidence presented during an extraordinary series of hearings raised questions about whether the prosecutors may have committed federal crimes.
U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond said testimony concerning Krasner and Matthew Stiegler, chief of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit, revealed conduct he considered sufficiently serious to warrant referral to federal prosecutors.
“I have thus reluctantly concluded that Philadelphia’s highest law enforcement official and one of his top assistants may have violated the law,” Diamond wrote.
“In these circumstances, with the issuance of this Memorandum, I refer the DAO, Mr. Krasner, and Stiegler to this District’s United States Attorney’s Office for investigation and other appropriate action,” he added, according to reporting on the judge’s ruling.
The referral does not mean Krasner or Stiegler has been charged with a crime, nor does it establish that either committed one. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania would have to decide independently whether to open a criminal investigation, pursue additional evidence or bring charges.
As of Tuesday afternoon, federal prosecutors had not announced charges or publicly confirmed that an investigation had been opened. Krasner also had not immediately responded publicly to the referral.
Diamond, who was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush in 2004, also barred Krasner and Stiegler from further participation in the underlying federal court proceeding involving Dennis Johnson, who is attempting to overturn his 2009 second-degree murder conviction.
Johnson was convicted of fatally shooting Kenyatta Smith during a 2007 robbery outside a North Philadelphia convenience store near 30th Street and Lehigh Avenue. A jury found him guilty of second-degree murder in 2009, and he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Johnson has spent years challenging that conviction, including on grounds that his trial attorney provided ineffective assistance.
The controversy now surrounding Krasner’s office began after Assistant District Attorney Jaclyn Mason filed a federal court submission in 2022 agreeing that Johnson should receive a new trial.
Mason argued at the time that Johnson’s trial attorney had failed to object to improper testimony from a detective concerning an identification made by a witness who did not testify at trial and therefore could not be cross-examined.
But the District Attorney’s Office dramatically reversed course this year after Diamond ordered an evidentiary hearing and senior prosecutors began reviewing how the 2022 concession had been prepared.
The office ultimately said its earlier position was “legally erroneous” and “not supported by the record,” acknowledging serious errors and material omissions in the submission that had supported overturning Johnson’s conviction.
What initially appeared to be a dispute over a flawed court filing then widened into an examination of the internal conduct of Krasner’s office.
Mason testified in July that Stiegler, who supervised her when the 2022 filing was prepared, had worked with Johnson’s federal defenders and the Pennsylvania Innocence Project before the case was assigned to her.
She said she had effectively been directed toward the conclusion that Johnson’s conviction should be overturned rather than independently reaching that judgment after conducting a full review of the case. Stiegler disputed portions of Mason’s account, telling the court that the decision had been collaborative.
Under questioning from Diamond, Stiegler acknowledged that his unit at the time did not independently reinvestigate cases by re-interviewing witnesses or reexamining primary evidence in the manner the judge appeared to expect.
“You did no investigation on your own?” Diamond asked during the hearing.
“No,” Stiegler replied.
Mason resigned from the District Attorney’s Office in June after colleagues concluded that the original Johnson filing had to be withdrawn.
The dispute then shifted to who should bear responsibility for the errors.
According to testimony summarized by Diamond, prosecutors Katherine Ernst, Steven Wildberger, David Napiorski and Peter Andrews became concerned that Stiegler was proposing a strategy that would portray Mason as a “rogue” prosecutor while insulating himself and the broader office from responsibility.
Several prosecutors testified that Stiegler suggested examining Mason’s other cases for mistakes that could be presented to Diamond as evidence that she alone was responsible for the problems in Johnson’s case.
They said Krasner responded favorably to that proposal.
The testimony also included allegations that Krasner warned prosecutors of “consequences” if they pursued steps he opposed and encouraged actions they believed could result in misleading the court.
Krasner’s office previously rejected those accusations.
In a July court filing signed by Krasner, the office described assertions made by Ernst and Wildberger as unauthorized and “ill-informed,” arguing that the prosecutors lacked sufficient firsthand knowledge and had no authority to speak for the District Attorney’s Office.
Krasner’s office also argued in a more recent 47-page submission that Mason bore significant responsibility for the defective filing.
“Mason signed and filed a brief rife with errors that supported the defense’s request for a new trial,” the office wrote. “Mason has admitted that she did not review the relevant records, including the trial transcripts, before supporting overturning a murder conviction; she may have simply cribbed and modified the filings of the defense attorneys.”
The filing acknowledged that Stiegler had failed to catch the errors but rejected the broader portrayal of misconduct within the office.
Diamond reached a different conclusion about the seriousness of the evidence presented during the hearings.
He described aspects of the testimony as “troubling” and “disturbing” and said the record contained “evidence of possible criminal wrongdoing by Mr. Krasner and Stiegler.”
The judge had previously warned during an August hearing that, if the allegations proved accurate, some of the conduct being described could implicate offenses such as perjury, conspiracy or obstruction of justice.
At that stage, Diamond did not identify particular individuals he believed might be criminally responsible. Tuesday’s memorandum went further by specifically referring Krasner, Stiegler and the District Attorney’s Office to federal prosecutors.
The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office had already asked Diamond to remove Krasner’s office from Johnson’s case.
State prosecutors argued last week that Krasner had a personal conflict stemming from the controversy and had placed an interest in protecting his office above the Commonwealth’s interest in properly litigating Johnson’s petition.
Krasner’s office disputed that characterization and argued it should remain involved.
Diamond’s order removes Krasner and Stiegler personally from further participation while leaving the separate question of Johnson’s conviction for the federal court to resolve.
Johnson’s petition itself remains pending. Diamond has not ruled that Johnson is innocent or that his conviction should be overturned.
The legal dispute instead evolved into a separate examination of whether prosecutors entrusted with responding to Johnson’s challenge provided accurate information to the court and whether senior officials later attempted to improperly shape the account of how the original filing was produced.
Krasner, a Democrat first elected Philadelphia district attorney in 2017, received substantial outside support during his initial campaign from an independent political committee financed by billionaire George Soros. Soros contributed nearly $1.7 million to the committee supporting Krasner during that race. The outside spending is unrelated to the conduct now under review in federal court.
Tuesday’s referral is therefore not a criminal charge against Krasner or Stiegler.
It is, however, an unusual escalation: a sitting federal judge has formally sent allegations involving Philadelphia’s elected district attorney and one of his highest-ranking prosecutors to federal law enforcement after hearing testimony from members of Krasner’s own office.
The next decision now belongs to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Federal prosecutors will determine whether the evidence Diamond identified warrants a criminal investigation and, if so, whether there is sufficient evidence to establish any federal offense.
Until that process occurs, the judge’s findings remain allegations of possible wrongdoing rather than criminal convictions.
But Krasner and Stiegler will no longer participate in Dennis Johnson’s effort to overturn his murder conviction, and the internal dispute that began over a defective post-conviction filing has now reached federal prosecutors for possible criminal scrutiny.
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