Philadelphia's top prosecutor criticized the state attorney general Thursday for dropping a corruption sting and announced what he called "the first, but not the last" charges in the revived case.
District Attorney Seth Williams charged a former Philadelphia traffic court judge with bribery for allegedly taking a $2,000 Tiffany bracelet from a statehouse lobbyist.
He found no evidence of racial profiling and had no legal qualms about the case, both concerns raised by state Attorney General Kathleen Kane when she abandoned the sting earlier this year. Williams and all of the targets of the investigation, including several lawmakers from Philadelphia, are black. Kane is white.
Thomasine Tynes, the former president of the city's traffic court, surrendered to authorities Thursday morning. She was charged with accepting the bracelet over lunch at the Palm Restaurant in 2011 with lobbyist-turned-informant Tyron B. Ali. Tynes has told The Philadelphia Inquirer, which first reported on the investigation, that she did not initially know the silver charm bracelet was valuable.
However, Williams said the bauble came wrapped in Tiffany's trademark blue box and a matching bag.
Ali was working undercover after being ensnared in a $430,000 nonprofit fraud case, so all of it was on tape. He had 113 meetings with various lawmakers, public officials and other contacts, the Tynes indictment said. He told Tynes he was seeking a collections contract with the court, the indictment said.
"This case is press and play," Williams said in response to questions about legitimacy of the confidential informant. "Press a button and listen to the tapes. Press a button and watch the video."
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Ali's lawyer, Robert Levant, had no comment on the case.
Kane inherited the case when she took office, and dropped it amid concerns that it was poorly managed, targeted black officials and was unlikely to score convictions. Her spokeswoman declined to comment on Williams' remarks.
"This is not our case, and the Office of Attorney General does not make a habit of commenting on other prosecutors' cases," spokeswoman Renee Martin said Thursday.
Williams had challenged Kane to send him the file after she abandoned the case, and later hired two of her top prosecutors.
"We started with evidence of widespread, but supposedly not prosecutable, political corruption," Williams said at a news conference. He said the case files offered "clear, convincing and compelling evidence — all on tape."
Tynes, already convicted of perjury in an unrelated federal ticket-fixing case this year, was expected to be released on bail later in the day. She is set to be sentenced Nov. 20 on the federal perjury charges. That case involved nearly the entire traffic court bench and led the court's dissolution.
"Thomasine Tynes is a wonderful person who was placed in a very bad position by a very slick con man, and we believe we can resolve these charges," defense lawyer Louis Busico said.
