Sometimes It’s Wiser to Just Keep Your Mouth Shut

Don’t get me wrong: I like Seth Williams. He has been a strong advocate for “returning citizens,” by which me means those people formerly incarcerated, and trying to earn their way back to a decent and respectable life in law-abiding society. More, he has been strongly supportive of law enforcement in Philadelphia, and critical of the George Soros-sponsored, police-hating defense lawyer now serving as District Attorney, Larry Krasner. As you can see from the image of his Twitter biography, not only do I follow him on Twitter, he even follows me back! 🙂

Mr Williams, from January 4, 2010 until July 24, 2017, was the District Attorney for Philadelphia, and, along with Mayor Michael Nutter and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, helped reduce the city’s terrible homicide rate, from 331 in 2008, when Mr Nutter was elected, to 277 in Mr Nutter’s last year in office, 2015. Since Mr Nutter left office, and Commissioner Ramsey resigned, the homicide rate has soared, never below 300 again, and over 500 in 2021 and 2022; while 2020 saw ‘only’ 499 homicides, there’s strong reason to believe that the total was actually 502, and then revised downward. Even with the homicide rate down this year, the city is almost certainly going to see over 400 murders in 2023.

Unfortunately, the former District Attorney got in trouble with the law himself, big time. From Wikipedia:

On March 21, 2017, the US Department of Justice announced that they had indicted Williams on “bribery and extortion charges”.[2] Williams was disbarred effective April 13, 2017 by court order.[21]

Williams was accused of accepting bribes, totaling more than $175,000 in undisclosed “gifts,”[3] for which he had already been fined $62,000 by the Philadelphia Board of Ethics.[22] Williams was also accused of having misappropriated more than $20,000 in Social Security and pension income that was intended to pay for his mother’s nursing home expenses and using those funds to pay his personal mortgage and utility bills.[23][24]

On June 29, 2017, Williams pleaded guilty to one count of bribery contrary to Pennsylvania law, which is punishable up to 5 years in prison with the maximum potential fine of $250,000.[25] The plea agreement was announced during the eighth day of his trial, as federal prosecutors outlined their 29-count corruption case against Williams.[26] U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond announced to the court that though the plea agreement convicted Williams of one of the 29 charges he faced, Williams had to admit to the underlying facts of the other 28 charges, including extortion, fraud and bribery.[27]

A request from Williams’ attorney that he be allowed to see his mother before serving his sentence prompted this response from the judge, “The English language doesn’t have the word to capture the outrageousness of that request,” said Diamond. “The defendant stole from his mother and now wants to visit her?”[8]

Judge Diamond revoked Williams’ bail and remanded him to a federal jail in Philadelphia. On October 24, 2017, he was sentenced to five years.[28] He was held in a federal prison in Morgantown, West Virginia.[29] His sentence was later reduced to less than three years on account of completing a drug rehabilitation program in prison and maintaining good behavior; he was released in April 2020 and returned to Philadelphia.[30]

However, even after being released, Mr Williams was still under Federally Supervised Release, something which ended on Friday, September 29th. And Mr Williams then fired back on the prosecution:

Ex-DA Seth Williams has a new story to tell now that his federal supervised release is over

Seth Williams, pleading guilty six years ago, said he “squandered” the trust of the city, his friends and family. Now he says the feds ganged up on him with the Catholic Church.

by Chris Brennan | Monday, October 2, 2023 | 1:30 PM EDT

Disgraced former Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams apologized eight times while being sentenced by a federal judge six years ago after halting his trial on corruption charges to plead guilty.

I do not expect unbiased articles in The Philadelphia Inquirer, so I was not surprised, but an unbiased article would have not have begun by referring to Mr Williams as “disgraced.” That first paragraph would have sufficed to let readers know that Mr Williams had been convicted in federal court.

Williams, sentenced to five years in prison, celebrated the end of his term on supervised release this weekend with a trip to the beach and a total rewrite of his criminal history.

Old version: He “squandered” the trust of the city, his friends and family.

New version: The feds and the Catholic Church ganged up on him. . . . .

“I can tell the truth now without fear of repercussions,” Williams continued. “Ninety percent of ALL federal cases are vindictive personality driven cases without victims and targeted.”

Williams then claimed the feds “took me out” with charges that he had diverted money meant to pay for his mother’s care at a nursing home run by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

“There is NO coincidence that I was the first DA to prosecute the hierarchy of the Catholic Church for shielding pedophile priests and they concocted charges against me related to my mom’s nursing home operated by the Catholic Church,” Williams posted.

Really? Perhaps Mr Williams is telling us nothing but the truth here, but it certainly reads like what so many other convicted criminals would say.

I responded to Mr Williams personally, stating “Look, I like how you turned your life around, but you did plead guilty.”

To which Mr Williams responded, “Had no other option after a bad day in court and the option given to my attorneys. Could fight all the way and have judge give biased instruction to jury and Hope jury doesn’t compromise OR take what is offered? Hard choice.”

So, which Seth Williams do I believe, the man who pleaded guilty, and made several apologies for his actions, or the one who is now telling us that he was, in effect, railroaded into a guilty plea, to save himself from a much longer sentence, now that he can say whatever he wants without fear that he’ll be returned to jail for it?

Sadly, I believe that Mr Williams has damaged his credibility here. As an advocate for “returning citizens,” his voice as a returning citizen was probably stronger before he decided to claim that he was really innocent after all. His vocal support for law enforcement had stronger appeal when he had admitted that he had broken the law and was punished for it. Now, he’s become an advocate for all of those returning citizens who are claiming that, regardless of their convictions, they really didn’t do it.

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