The accused Democrats were racially profiled.
Via Philly Com
Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams on Wednesday announced he has launched a grand-jury investigation into the aborted sting probe that captured five Philadelphia Democrats on tape accepting money or gifts but ended with no charges filed.
Williams said his renewed investigation was already under way and would be completed in “months, not years.”
Among the possible results, he said, were a recommendation of criminal charges or a written report by the grand jury. He said he has assigned four veteran prosecutors in his office to lead the probe.
“If crimes occurred here of this nature, of this magnitude, we can’t stick our heads in the sand,” he said Wednesday. “We can’t be indifferent.”
Williams said he had personally listened to some of the tape-recorded evidence. When asked if he found the tapes convincing, he said, “They are.” He did not elaborate.
The Inquirer disclosed in March that state Attorney General Kathleen Kane had shut down the long-running sting shortly after taking office in January 2013. The investigation had begun under her predecessor, then-Attorney General Tom Corbett, and caught four state legislators and a Philadelphia Traffic Court judge on tape accepting cash, money orders or jewelry.
Kane, a Democrat, said she shut down the probe because she believed it was poorly conceived, badly managed and possibly tainted by racial profiling. All five Democrats captured on tape are black.
Kane also took issue with what she called a “deal of the century” that her predecessors had offered the sting’s undercover operative, Tyron B. Ali.
The veteran prosecutors who launched the investigaiton countered that Kane wrongly shut down an inquiry that had already caught elected officials accepting money – and had the potential to capture many more.
Tynes has said she had no idea a bracelet Ali gave her was worth $2000. She said she thought it was an inexpensive knockoff until she had it examined at Tiffany & Co.
Tynes, who is on trial for perjury and ticket-fixing, said she had tried to pay Ali back but could not find an address for him. As for the bracelet, she has told The Inquirer, “I never wore it.”