On Tuesday, September 15, a federal judge did something courts almost never do to an elected prosecutor: he referred Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and one of his senior assistants to the U.S. Department of Justice for possible perjury, false statements, obstruction of justice and conspiracy, and threw Krasner’s office off the murder appeal that started it all. The people who put him there were his own prosecutors, who told the court Krasner had ordered them to “protect the office.”
Where This Stands Right Now
- U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond referred Krasner, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Stigler and the DA’s office to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania “for investigation and other appropriate action,” writing that he had “reluctantly concluded” they “may have violated the law.”
- The judge’s memo names false statements, perjury and obstruction of justice as possible offenses; NBC News reported he also said the conduct could amount to criminal conspiracy.
- Four of Krasner’s own prosecutors testified about pressure to keep the case in-house; two of them say he warned of “consequences” for any staffer who told the court about the office’s conflicts.
- Krasner “respectfully and vigorously” disagrees and says he will appeal as soon as the law allows. A referral is not a charge; the Justice Department decides what happens next.
The Ones Who Turned Him In
The case grew out of Dennis Johnson’s 2009 conviction for the killing of Kenyatta Smith. Krasner’s office first agreed Johnson deserved a new hearing, then reversed itself months later. Assistant District Attorneys Katherine Ernst and Steven Wildberger told the court in a filing that Krasner directed them to “protect the office” during that reversal, and that when they pushed to hand the case to the Pennsylvania Attorney General because of internal conflicts, Krasner said in late June there would be “consequences” for anyone who told the court about those conflicts. Two more attorneys, David Napiorski and Peter Andrews, later gave similar testimony.
Judge Diamond went further than the filings. NBC News reported he found evidence that Krasner and Stigler tried to convince four prosecutors to “urge the court to accept a false narrative.” If that holds, the allegation is not that the office made a mistake on an appeal; it is that the office pushed its own lawyers to mislead a federal judge about what happened.
What Krasner Says
“I respectfully and vigorously disagree with the court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law,” Krasner said, adding that the pending case limits what he can say publicly. His office, in a separate filing, called Ernst and Wildberger’s accusations “ill-informed,” said the two filed their brief without permission, and insisted that Krasner’s push to keep control of the appeal was “entirely appropriate” and that every problem identified in Johnson’s case had been fixed.
The Political Consequence
Krasner has run prosecutions in the nation’s sixth-largest city since 2018 and is the most prominent of the progressive district attorneys elected in the last decade. Pennsylvania Republicans impeached him in the state House in 2022; the effort died in the Senate. A federal judge’s finding that he “may have violated the law,” backed by testimony from four of his own prosecutors, is the first time the case against him has come from inside the building rather than from the other party. It lands in a midterm year in which crime and prosecutors’ discretion are on the ballot in every large city, and it hands every candidate running against a reform DA a sentence they can quote.
What Happens Next
The disqualification is immediate: the DA’s office no longer controls the Johnson appeal, which the state Attorney General had already asked to take over. The U.S. Attorney’s Office decides whether to open a formal investigation; that decision can take months and may never be announced. Krasner’s appeal of the referral comes first. Watch whether the four prosecutors who testified stay in the office, and whether the full memorandum and hearing transcripts are unsealed, because that is where the phrase “false narrative” either gets its evidence or loses it.
Sources:
nbcnews.com, nbcphiladelphia.com, inquirer.com, audacy.com
