Kathryn Knott became something of a tipping point for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and the city’s LGBT residents.
The community had a flurry of questions about the woman who went to trial in relation to the 2014 attack of a gay couple in Center City, after her two male codefendants took plea deals that came with community service instead of jail time.
To address the issue, Philadelphia District Attorney R. Seth Williams attended a Liberty City LGBT Democratic Club meeting in January.
“They were expressing their concerns originally when two of the three codefendants had pled,” he said. “They had questions about why that was and what the justification was.”
Williams said Mike Barry, the prosecutor on the case, explained the victims were the ones who wanted the deals to avoid reliving their attack at trial.
“But [Barry] wasn’t really at liberty to go into a lot of details because part of the case was still open,” Williams said, noting Knott didn’t receive her sentence until February. She was released from jail this week after serving the minimum of her five- to 10-month sentence.
Williams followed the Liberty City meeting with a March breakfast at the District Attorney’s Office near City Hall. Forty local LGBT leaders were invited. They met various prosecutors and discussed concerns, namely a desire for more regular communication with the office.
LGBT liaisons: Future
The District Attorney’s Office has not had an internal LGBT liaison since the beginning of 2015 when Nellie Fitzpatrick, a former assistant district attorney, left to lead the Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs.
The search for a new liaison is ongoing, said Cameron Kline, spokesperson for the district attorney. Kline added Williams has reached out to his zone chiefs — the office distributes its caseload among six geographical zones that are aligned with Philadelphia police zones — to cull recommendations for people who would like to fill the role. The office employs about 300 assistant district attorneys.
“We’ll have to try to work through that sooner rather than later,” Williams said. “As a result of the meeting … I really thought that we need to step that up.”
There is no extra compensation for the LGBT liaison and it requires a time commitment for community meetings, Williams noted.
In the meantime, Williams has relied on his friend Michael Weiss, who owns the Gayborhood bars Woody’s and Voyeur. He said Weiss helped arrange his time at the Liberty City meeting.
Weiss joined the transitional team for Williams when he became district attorney in 2010. He continued as a special advisor for small businesses, looking at how crime patterns impact a business’ decision to leave or move to the city. Through the years, Weiss said he’s also shared LGBT issues with Williams.
“In my normal job of owning a club, you get to hear a lot of the concerns of the community,” Weiss said. “I make sure they reach the proper officials.”
He also serves on the Philly LGBT Police Liaison Committee and had an 11-year tenure under mayors Ed Rendell and John Street with the Police Advisory Commission, the civilian-oversight body.
Twice a month, Weiss has a phone call with Williams to discuss the LGBT community. He said he often includes information from the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus meetings he attends in Washington on behalf of U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, a Philadelphia Democrat.
In the year-and-a-half since Fitzpatrick joined the mayor’s office, Weiss said he has organized about four meetings between the LGBT community and the District Attorney’s Office. Another is planned for September with the time and location still being determined.
“One issue is the meetings are always in Center City locations, either at the DA’s office or William Way,” Weiss said. “We’re looking at other viable locations. There are LGBT folks all around the city.”
He said he’s heard the community talk recently about whether white LGBT people are treated differently than LGBT people of color.
When a new internal LGBT liaison is appointed, Weiss said he would continue as an external liaison.
“From the outside, I can say, ‘Hey Seth, this is an issue we have,’” he said. “There are no repercussions. I’m not trying to get a promotion. It brings a lot more openness and ability to say what people are really thinking without sugarcoating it.”
LGBT liaisons: Past
Lynne Abraham was the first Philadelphia district attorney to appoint an LGBT liaison. Susan Herron, an assistant district attorney, first took the post. She was a straight ally.
In the early 2000s, after Herron left to work in higher education, Abraham appointed Chris Mallios, the first openly gay LGBT liaison. As a prosecutor, he also coordinated law-enforcement response to hate crimes and served as chief of the family-violence and sexual-assault unit.
Mallios did not want to speak on the record about internal operations at the District Attorney’s Office, citing his current role as a judge on the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. But he noted the position’s importance.
Fitzpatrick, who also coordinated hate crimes and prosecuted family violence and sexual-assault cases, became the LGBT liaison at the beginning of 2012 under Williams. She joined the District Attorney’s Office in 2008 and by 2009 had become a vocal advocate. She said her work as a prosecutor was not separate from her life as a lesbian.
“It wasn’t always easy to find the time, but it became critically important,” Fitzpatrick said. “Sometimes colleagues came to me with files and closed the door. I did one-on-one training that slowly expanded because I was vocal and pushed.”
She had also started attending LGBT community meetings. It was an organic move to become the official liaison, Fitzpatrick said, but there were challenges.
“It’s difficult, especially if you’re a DA or public defender, to have the ability to tell the court staffer or judge that what they’re doing is increasing discrimination or hurtful.”
“Saying, ‘Because I’m a lesbian, you can’t do this,’ that doesn’t work,” Fitzpatrick added. “When I was charged with this duty as liaison, I became more effective.”
Fitzpatrick recalled an early incident in her career in which a detective made homophobic comments about two men in an intimate-partner-violence situation. She said it helped her tackle the issue of LGBT people under-reporting crimes against them.
Since moving to City Hall, Fitzpatrick said she sometimes receives calls from former colleagues who want advice. She’s gone to court to support an LGBT witness or victim on the stand. But she said there are things she’s not privy to anymore because she doesn’t work daily in the District Attorney’s Office.
Fitzpatrick said she’d like to see another internal LGBT liaison in the office, noting the community has a direct link to the mayor through her and to the police department through Deputy Commissioner Myron Patterson, who became the LGBT liaison in January after Kevin Bethel retired.
“All throughout government, we need to have a point person,” she said.
Protect, not persecute
Williams wants interaction with all communities in Philadelphia. He extolled the virtues of community-based prosecution and wants people to use the District Attorney’s Office like “any other city service, just like the water in their apartment.”
“Our job, our goal, is really to serve them,” Williams said of Philadelphians. “Our job is to protect the community, not to persecute the community.”
One of the first things he did when he took office was to set up five community-action centers around the city where people can ask questions about the criminal-justice system. It was something he’d seen done in Brooklyn. To avoid incurring extra costs, the spaces were donated by people like developers Bart Blatstein and Eric Blumenfeld. City Councilwoman Cindy Bass also created space in her district office on Germantown Avenue.
Getting boots on the ground in neighborhoods outside Center City was important to Williams. He felt that approach gained weight after meeting with the LGBT community at the District Attorney’s Office.
“People perceive that the Gayborhood is monolithic and the only place where people that have these concerns live, which clearly we know that’s not true,” Williams said. “I recognize that the city is vastly different neighborhood by neighborhood.”
He felt one of the most productive outcomes of this spring’s LGBT breakfast was people getting to meet the prosecutors from their neighborhoods.
“I wanted members of the community to meet those people,” Williams said, “so that if they were part of an organization that might provide services primarily in the Northeast or South Philly, they could know and connect who that person is. They can invite us to their organization so we can continue sharing information, listening and learning from each other.”
For more information
The Philadelphia district attorney’s office distributes its caseload among six geographical zones that are aligned with Philadelphia police zones. Each zone contains three or four police districts.
For questions on particular incidents, people are advised to call the zone chief of the district attorney’s office in the area where an incident occurred.
- East division chief, covering the 24th, 25th and 26th police districts: Rich Bauer can be reached at 215-686-9676 or [email protected].
- Central division chief, covering the 6th, 9th and 22nd police districts: Erin Boyle can be reached at 215-686-9962 or [email protected].
- Northwest division chief, covering the 5th, 14th, 35th and 39th police districts: Vince Regan can be reached at 215-686-9964 or [email protected].
- South division chief, covering the 1st, 3rd and 17th police districts: Kirsten Heine can be reached at 215-686-8930 or [email protected].
- Northeast division chief, covering the 2nd, 7th, 8th and 15th police districts: Jacqueline Coelho can be reached at 215-686-8934 or [email protected].
The district attorney’s office also maintains five community action centers where people can meet with someone who will answer general questions about LGBT or other concerns.
- Central Community Action Center at The Lofts at 640, 640 N. Broad St. Contact: Monique Wescott at 215-685-0748 or [email protected].
- Lawncrest Community Action Center, 6135 Rising Sun Ave. Contact: Quincy Lyons at 215-683-1964 or [email protected].
- Northern Liberties Community Action Center, #59 North Hancock St. at the Piazza. Contact Zeli Colon at 215-592-4427 or [email protected].
- Northwest Community Action Center, 4439A Germantown Ave. Contact: Quincy Lyons at [email protected].
- West Philadelphia Community Action Center, #55 N. 60th St. Contact Thomas Carter at 215-685-3560 or [email protected].