So actually, the -- you have not received any or many cases related to subprime lending in the small-business loan market or in the home mortgage market? It has strictly been mostly contained to home improvement.
I can't think of a case -- we have not received any complaints about predatory lending per se. The predatory lending has always been a part of a home improvement fraud scheme. And outside of -- it's possible that there is a predatory lending case that I can't -- 1905 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET I'm not thinking of that's other than home improvement, but I have to say that it's 100 percent home improvement schemes.
So would you agree that any legislation or laws that we put on the books on the local, State or federal level, new laws or existing laws, if we want to classify predatory lending as a proactive to actually go after those people who you're talking about, and the problem actually exists, then maybe we need to target that toward home improvement loans.
Yes. And, in fact, the two bills that the District Attorney referred to, they were two versions of basically the same bill 16 -- one introduced in the House and one introduced in the Senate in the 1999 session. Both of those were home improvement scheme or home improvement fraud bills, and both of them went a long way to closing a lot of the loopholes that exist in prosecuting home improvement fraud schemes. In ten seconds or less, the problem that we have there is that when someone does not get in a home improvement situation, the builder to show up on Monday, when the builder says 1906 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET they're supposed to show up on Monday, then the builder says, Well, I'm busy. And then there becomes a question: Well, how long do you have to wait before a builder with a -- or a contractor with a busy schedule becomes somebody who's simply never going to deliver? And the home improvement fraud bill 9 tried to close the loopholes which allowed that kind of practice now. It really didn't address the predatory lending aspects, the banking or the loan aspects.
So there's not necessarily a need to regulate the whole subprime market in Philadelphia but that which particularly relates to home improvement loans.
Well, I couldn't comment on whether there's a need to do that. I can just tell you, from the point of view of prosecuting the crimes that we see related to predatory lending cases that you've read about in the paper and that we see come across desk, they all involve home improvement, and that's really where our focus has been.
Thank you very much. 1907 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET
There's also one other aspect you should be aware of, Councilman Goode. And that is when -- let's say on Monday morning, the contractor does show up and he brings, oh, $20 worth of paint and some paint brushes and a couple of boards and some nails, and says, I'll be back tomorrow, and never shows up. It almost is doubly, if not entirely, difficult, if not impossible to prove that he intended to defraud at the time that the contract was made, because he's already, quote, started work. And then it becomes a breach-of-contract suit as opposed to a criminal fraud. And also, these companies change names all the time and identities. It's hard to track those down as well. So that this is very, very labor-intensive, very difficult, but very problematic. So, obviously, we are vitally interested in protecting home owners. This is the one thing that they have in their life, that they now own free and clear, is their home. And it's the one thing that they're absolutely guaranteed entirely to lose by these practices. 1908 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET
Thank you. Actually, contrary to popular belief, I'm actually a member of the Predatory Lending Task Force. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Are you familiar with the bill we have before us? Mr. Deutchman, are you familiar with the bill before us in City Council?
That would be this one, the predatory lending practices bill?
And have you had an opportunity to read it, study it, analyze it?
Read it, yes; study it, somewhat; analyze it, a little bit less, yes.
Do you have any opinions about it? Would that bill be effective, do you think, based on your experiences, if it were adopted?
To be perfectly honest, Councilman, I really couldn't tell you, not with regard to home improvement fraud. I've been 1909 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET trying to puzzle through the relationship between the home improvement fraud cases that we see and this bill. I think that it's likely that it might dissuade those persons involved in the predatory lending practices who are also contractors from trying to ply their trade to begin with; and, therefore, it might be somewhat helpful in attacking the problem. I do think, however, that we're going to see that problem, even with this bill, and that we do need the legislation that we've referred to before involving home improvement fraud to attack it from the other end as well. But I can -- it's hard to predict the future. It does seem to me, though, that there are sufficient restraints on lending here, particularly the provision that it requires any anyone involved in what's defined in the bill as "a predatory loan" to get counseling, which is going to be, if implemented, a buffer between that person that the DA described, who has been saturated with the kind of too-good-to-be-true advertising that we hear about a lot of these 1910 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET loans. It's going to provide that buffer between that person and the broker/contractor who's going to be standing there with a fountain pen saying, Sign, and all of your troubles will be taken care of. So I do that think that it will have an impact.
Well, is the main trouble that which you and the District Attorney have described as being the failure of a performance, the not showing up for work? Isn't there also a good deal of bad, shoddy workmanship involved where there is a more full effort to do the work, but to do it in a way that's not very satisfactory?
I would say yes, and I'd also point out that one of the things that the two bills that we referred to before, the ones that had died in the last session, tried to address was how to structure a bill which would make criminal home improvement fraud, that would take into account the home improvement fraud defendant who does a little bit of work, or who does it in such a cursory fashion that you could 1911 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET no more say that they had done -- that they had produced a good product than that somebody who gave you a car without an engine had produced a good automobile. So those two bills tried to tailor themselves particularly to that problem, because absent that kind of legislation, the shoddy home improvement contractor has the defense of not having criminal intent. And as -- while that home improvement contractor might be able to suffer some kind of civil damages, might be in civil court on a contract action, would be basically immune from criminal prosecution because of having made some attempt to -- or at least acted like they had made some attempt to do the work.
And is there an ability to show that the total cost involved may be five to ten times the amount of a reasonable cost for the home improvement that's been provided for in the contract? When you add the balloon payments, you add the high-interest payments and all of the other fees, are there difficulties with that that can be addressed by legislation? 1912 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET
Well, the cost -- for example, there was a story in the paper about a woman who owned her house free and clear and who wound up in the end owing about $30,000 on the house.
If you're asking the question, Could all of this be remedied by legislation? the answer is yes. It can't be remedied by City Council ordinance, however. This needs to be addressed in a very effective statutory scheme, which will change our criminal laws to allow us to show an intent to defraud based on, among other things, the fact that the person got $25,000 but only showed up and did $200 worth of work. Or he tore out the toilet, the sink and the tub, and then never showed up, and got five times, ten times, or twenty times whatever the value of the tub, the sink, and the toilet or the ceiling was worth. But right now, intent to defraud must be shown at the time that the contract was entered into, that the person had no intent of delivering 1913 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET on the contract. The fact that he went out of business, that he was busy, that he was not very good at what he does shows judges anywhere in Pennsylvania that we cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had at the time of the entry of the agreement a criminal intent to defraud. That's the biggest problem that we have, because we're limited in the factors we can show.
And you're saying that on the basis of the complaints the DA's Office has had over a period of time, these complaints are all, or certainly 99.9 percent, consisting of kind of residential rather than business problems?
So that the fraud that we're talking about does not interfere with the subprime concerns that may be exist or that may even be required in business-to-business relations?
If it does, we haven't seen it. 1914 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Ortiz.
Thank you, Madam Chair. How many of these cases have been prosecuted by your office?
I don't have a specific statistic with regard to home improvement cases, but they are -- in the family of cases that we have been doing, for as long as I've been Chief of the Economic Crimes Unit, and I've been Chief since May of 1998.
Well, within that family, tell me -- tell me what has been done to the family that is perpetrating this crime.
The cases are brought to us, they are prosecuted. We have a very high success rate. I can't think of a case that we've lost. The defendants -- are you asking what happens to the defendants in the criminal justice system?
They tend to get probation and restitution ordered. They very rarely get jail time.
In the period of time over the last two years -- and who then goes after them to make sure that they do make restitution?
The Probation Department is supposed to, and the judge, more importantly, is posed to. And we could probably have a very long discussion of how long it takes to chase after somebody to get them to repay --
If they don't make restitution, does the District Attorney then issue an order of arrest and bring 'em back?
No, no, we can't do that. What we can do is, we can ask the probation officer to ask the court to file a violation of probation for failure to pay restitution. It's usually the probation officer who finds out from the complaining witness that the defendant does not -- has not paid restitution. We also can find that out. We get to the probation officer and we say, Has Mr. X made 1916 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET his payments this month? And if they haven't, the Probation Department --
I'd like to see numbers to that. If you have them, forward them over to the Chairman's office. Because we've been dealing, and we're dealing in this Council now, with predatory lending. And we'd like to see what, if anything, is being done to these individuals, as you claim, that enter into fraudulent practices in terms of household financing and so on. Madam District Attorney, we go over this every year. How many attorneys do you have currently?
Out of that 305, how many of those can we classify as minorities -- African-American, women, and Latinos.
Yes, sir. Okay, we have -- let's see. We have -- let's see. We have 16 African-American males, 1917 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET Asian, 4 Latino males, 21 African-American, 9 Asian, Latino females. So we have a total of 50 African- American males, Asians, Latinos. 90 -- sorry, strike it out. We have -- sorry, let's 7 go back again. 8 These are support and regular. Let me 9 just stick to the lawyers. You want just lawyers 10 only?
Okay. We have 14 African-American males, 5 Asian males, 4 Hispanic 15 males, 21 African-American females, 9 Asian 16 females, and 6 Hispanic females.
We have 10 Latinos. Let's see -- no, 14 Asian and 38 African-American.
Is that an increase in Latinos from last year or a decrease in Latinos, or are you just maintaining the status quo?
I'm just trying to 1918 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET remember. Do you remember, Al? I don't remember. So many people come and go, Councilman, I can't -- I don't know. It's always -- it remains relatively constant. And as I heard Ken Trujillo testify previously, we suffer the same problems. As a matter of fact, not only do I personally go out and talk to law students about minority recruitment; in fact, I had a date at Temple University Law School last Monday, but it had to be changed because of some other intervention. We also had a minority reception in the Mayor's conference about, what was it, four or five weeks ago, where we invited every person we could possibly think of to come and be wooed and wowed by our office.
Of the interns that your office hires every year, how do they break down by race and ethnic group?
You usually do your hiring from people who have interned in your office. 1919 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET
Yes. The -- well, most of our interns are volunteers, they're not hired; the greatest number are volunteers. But from our volunteer staff, a significant number are hired. We give preference to those people who come and volunteer, and we are always interested in making our office more representative of the clients we serve. But we suffer the same problems as the City Solicitor: our salary structure is such that --
A heavy concentration of our summer interns are minorities. We have special programs at schools. In fact, somebody at -- somebody, an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania, as a personal favor to me, pays the salary of minority lawyers at Penn, hoping that they will come in, like the office, and we have 1920 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET offered those graduates now graduates jobs, and they always go where they can get 135, $140,000 a year. And I have to say, Councilman, I can't blame somebody wanting to make $140,000 instead of 37,000 a year.
There are. And to the extent that we can woo -- look, the people I have referred to, the 305 lawyers in my office -- to a man and to a woman, even the ones who have been there many years, can go out and make double, triple, or quadruple their salaries, but they do it for the same reason that I do it. I love the City, I love public service, I am not interested in making money. And I do it for those reasons; not to make money.
I think there are a lot of Latinos and African-Americans who feel the same way.
There are indeed. However, when you look at, for example, loan repayment, all of the debt that a person comes to 1921 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET a new job, the first job out of law school, you have college tuition and law school tuition.
Well, but you see, but there are differences. There are always -- first of all, we're not looking for lawyers, let me just make that clear. We're looking for litigators. And 99.9 percent of the Bar are lawyers, but 99.9 percent of them can't with walk into a courtroom, and don't want to walk into a courtroom. It's a different kind of lawyer who's a litigator, the person who can go in front of a court, who can really be a command presence. And I think Councilman Cohen's son has demonstrated that you're a litigator, not a lawyer.
And now the judge, that's right. And it's a different kind of person who wants to be a lawyer as opposed to a litigator. It's a much different jump. But it's not a matter of race; it's a matter of economics. 1922 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET It's very difficult to woo anybody to come to public service at $37,000 a year. And if Mr. Trujillo has a hard time getting them, we have a similar problem.
Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair - - - 1923 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET (Reported by Lisa C. Bradley, RPR.) - - -
I wanted to go back for a second and maybe finish up with -- I'm sorry.
The gentleman with the dark hair and glasses, yes. It's my understanding that you were involved or the offices was involved -- I don't if it was you personally, but there was a recent account about a contractor. This is back to the bad contractors and kind of how we get into the predatory lending. You were successful in a contractor prosecution in this regard?
Mr. Hollerin (ph). That case is still proceeding, yes. He's going to enter a guilty plea in that case, to our understanding.
And out all of this, and I heard the earlier discussion about intent, you were able to figure out the intent?
Yes. And one of the unfortunate ironies in a case like Mr. Hollerin's case, the best way to glean the intent of someone is to see them do the same thing over again. So what 1924 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET we end up with is, we end up because of the state of the law having to wait for the criminal to victimize a number of people before we can make the case. In that particular case, the first complainant called us a few years ago. At that point there was one complaint. There was nothing we could do.
When that case mushroomed into numerous complaints, we made the arrest.
Do you plan to continue vigilance in this particular area?
Can give us a statistical breakdown or an analysis of the numbers that the District Attorney gave us earlier in terms of you '99 complaints, your 2000 complaints and put them into categories of somewhat of a general that we might be able to make some distinction between this kind of economic crime versus -- what are some of the others?
Based on my familiarity, I can give you an off-top-of-my-head, so to speak, 1925 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET breakdown.
That would be a lot of breakdown. Don't give it to us right now. Why don't you just give us a report.
Thank you. Do you take calls from the predatory hotline, predatory lending hotline?
It would depend upon the nature of the call. If there was something that they called about that fell within a criminal law that we could prosecute, yes, absolutely. Or if there was something that the police would prosecute, it might be referred to the police, to major crimes unit or the detective divisions depending upon the nature of the case, but we don't bar those calls.
Maybe there needs to be some coordinated effort between the various and organizations and your office. Madam District Attorney, I was trying to keep track of many of the numbers that you were 1926 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET giving in response to Councilman Ortiz's question, but it will be impossible for me to figure out what this is tomorrow, let alone a month from now. Could you also in that regard maybe either forward us a copy of what you were reading through or develop some other report that will be able to lay out what's going on there?
Thank you. I'd like to move on to another area. A couple years ago there was a major announcement about an issue that many people do care about. It does affect Philadelphians a great deal, and that was the auto insurance fraud group or announcement and some contact with, I think, some state office of insurance fraud or something like that that the insurers contribute to.
Can you give us an update on what's happening with that, what's the result of that been, how many prosecutions?
I can't give you a number off the top of my head, but I'll be happy to provide 1927 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET you with what's happened. Fundamentally there are two authorities, the Insurance Fraud Prevention Authority and the Auto Theft Prevention Authority. Both are covered in my office under the chiefship of Linda Perkins. We have prosecuted hundreds of cases of insurance fraud of the kind such as -- and it maybe more than hundreds, frankly, Councilman Nutter. It's actually been more than a couple years; it's probably been closer to maybe four years now. The frauds, for example, we take any fraud against the City. City employee who claims that he or she is injured while at work and he or she wasn't. Any fraud involving SEPTA, somebody who claims they were on SEPTA conveyance and they were in a crash when were not injured. You know, one person on the bus, 50 claims. Any auto crashes that occur where people claim injuries from minor fender-benders or non-existent injuries because there are non-existent automobile crashes. Anything like that, we prosecuted hundreds of those. On the auto theft prevention, that is also covered under these laws. Our thefts of automobiles have gone down dramatically, in part because of that prosecution and because also it's 1928 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET been a well documented fact that when the police department does COMSTAT and does its overview of auto thefts, it shifts men and women around from their department to concentrate on those areas where auto theft is hot. We have gone down from about 27,000 stolen a year to somewhat less than that. And that is also occasioned in part the Police Department going out to every home where an automobile is stolen or reported stolen and personally interviewing the person as opposed to when my car -- actually, when three of my cars were stolen, all I did was report it over the telephone. So that has cut down on fraud, too. As well as, for example, give-backs: A person who is tired of paying for their automobile payments and they have it arranged to be stolen. So we still have lots of thefts. We still a net exporter of automobiles and auto parts. There will be -- well, I'll just leave it go at as that. But also chop shops and the multi-state nature of auto theft, but those are the two areas that I think you're interested in and we'll be happy to that breakdown. I'll make a note.
Get something back to me. I didn't know that Crown Victorias were in 1929 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET such high demand.
Actually, they're not. But Toyotas, Acuras, BMWs, Mercedes Benzes, Lexus, all the high-end cars, Jeep Cherokees. Also mag wheels, big, big wheels are really big.
On average, what does it cost to prosecute first degree murder case?
I believe many years ago you asked me this, and we've never been able to figure out what it costs for this reason: One can prepare a case for trial and on the day of trial -- we don't know how much trial prep cost because we've never sat down nor could we ever figure out how much on a per-hour basis your time is worth. We don't do it that way. But let's assume we get the case all prepped up. It's supposed a three-week jury trial and we're all ready to go. And the defendant's lawyer comes up to us at the moment of trail and says, "My client wants to negotiate something with the prosecution. And we've never -- 1930 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET
I understand that. I'm talking about they don't negotiate or decide not to. It just goes.
Hard to say because we don't know what court time is worth, what the court officer's time is worth, what the judge's time is worth. For us, we've done that either.
I wasn't talking in the entire universe of people involved in the case. I was speaking more from the District Attorney side.
The cost -- I mean, some are known things. I mean you have an attorney or two that work on the case. You have either your experts and other resources I guess you have to put together to make it all -- I mean, those things are quantifiable. You have to pay these people, some of them for their time.
Actually, Councilman, we've never done -- I don't know, to us, what the benefit of knowing how much it is for my time to go prosecute a case where someone hit you over the head or killed somebody. I think what happens is that our lawyers carry lots of cases at one time. It's 1931 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET difficult even to do that, but I'm not sure to what purpose. We are not attempting to put a value on preparation. I suppose we -- we could tell you how much we pay an expert witness because that's submitted to the court or there's bill. I don't know how we do attorney time. I don't know how to do that.
I guess, I asked in the context of we were here, as Councilman Cohen mentioned, earlier today there was a lot of discussion around court-appointed counsel. Obviously, there is a dollar amount set.
Well, I guess my understanding from earlier was that there's flat fee for the case and then there might be this other fee for how much time you're in court and how much time you're out of court.
I think there's out of court time and there's in court time. There's tow different layers of costs, but you see, they're paid on a per hour basis. And sometimes there's a cap placed on a case with the Court at his or her 1932 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET discretion allowing additional fees and costs. But we don't pay salaries by the hour, so it's hard to figure out.
Most of the government people don't work on a salary. I guess more in the realm of just trying to figure out how do you run an efficient office. I'm making no 9 comment as to whether the office is efficient or not. I have no way of knowing. Other departments and agencies of the government generally can tell us what it costs the citizens to provide that particular service. I think the Streets Commissioner can probably tell us what it cost to either fill a pothole, pick up trash. The Recreation Department can tell us what it costs generally to run a recreation center, something like that. So as we talk about either court-appointed counsel, what's going on in the courts, what the Public Defender does and how we value their particular time. I mean everyone's time and effort and resources and what you have to put into a case has a value. Unless we've determined that we just spend whatever it takes and figure it out in the next budget year. 1933 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET
I mean, I really don't think we're capable of doing that. For the very simple reason that we'd have require that attorney or those attorneys to keep detailed records of his or her minutes or hours for every case and then carefully keep those records from the time that he or she is assigned, the prep time, the trial time, the post-verdict motions, the pretrial motions, the in-court motions, the motion in lumina, the sentence, the post-verdict motions, the habeas corpus. We just don't do that. And frankly, I have to honest, that since the -- the benefit to a salaried employee like the benefit of having a public defender is that you pay a base salary. You don't have to worry about per diems or hours of work. I have to tell you frankly from my own experience of sitting on the bench, lawyers who try cases, besides never mind the difference of level of competence and capability of an attorney, which we can talk about some other time.
Lawyers frequently put in for more money than the court could or would pay. 1934 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET In a complex homicide. Look, if you have two homicide cases, they're never really alike. A particular client can give an attorney fits, make him or her crazy, cause him all kinds of hours of work. Where another defendant charged with relatively the same or similar events might just sail through, puts on his or her confidence in the lawyer. The same result was obtained but without all the storm and drom. But we don't do that and we can't -- I just asked Mr. Toczylowski could we do that. He said, no, we can't because we have no way of doing that without tasking the lawyer to say from the moment you get in a case start keeping records, but that won't give you any insight into any other case.
Homicides, 269? And were all of those somewhere in the charging process or somewhere as the case moves along, I guess in those kinds of cases you have to decide whether to seek the death penalty? 1935 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET
You mean how many times does the jury bring back a death penalty?
No. How many times was the person -- you charge for a death penalty, it doesn't always mean that's what they get, right?
You man how many times you gave a notice that we might seek the death penalty?
Last year, 68 cases with approved for the possible seeking of the death penalty.
No, we gave more notices than that. You're talking about two different things. Let me explain 352. The Rules of Criminal Procedure provide that within 10 days of your arraignment, that means after a person's been 1936 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET arrested, they've had a preliminary hearing, the charges have been held over for court, you go to an arraignment where the judge and the lawyers talk and decide this is going to be a jury trial, a non-jury trial. The defendant automatically enters a not guilty plea. The lawyer says, "I want a jury trial," for example. We must by Rule of Criminal Procedure give a notice that we may seek the death penalty in this case within 10 days of that time. Now, that doesn't mean we always will, but because the Rule requires this 10-day notice, we gave it in 143 cases last year. That's a 352 Notice.
Very limited knowledge and information here. I'm dealing with the small numbers. 269 prosecutions, 143 of which you gave notice? 1937 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET
And then somewhere along the line a decision is made to not go down that particular track. It's obviously still a murder case.
Correct. But additional information and investigation proves that the death penalty is not appropriate for those cases. So what we had left was 68 finally got to the point where we thought we might ask for the death penalty.
At what point in time -- it looks like 70-some plus cases dropped from the notice stage to the actual 68.
Is there a point in time that you kind have to fish or cut bait, for lack of more articulate terms, and decide that you're not going down that path and you're going another path?
Actually, it can be one of several things. It can be the defendant pleads guilty to a lesser offence. It could be that the case disintegrates. It could be that there is information that we received from the defendant or 1938 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET from our investigation which indicates that the penalty not appropriate.
But all during that time, there's investigation going on and stuff happening?
Sure, all the time. Absolutely. Up until -- even during the trial, we can always find additional information.
Is a death penalty case more expensive than a non-death penalty case?
I think a death penalty case as the potential for being more expensive.
What happened in the 68 that got through all of this system? And then at that point, you've actually gone to trial, right?
Some were; some weren't. The greatest bulk of them were found guilty of first degree murder without a death penalty.
I don't really know very much about this particular aspect of your 1939 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET business, nor am I particularly advocating that the number should be higher, but I am trying to understand. If you went from 68 and ultimately down to 5, what went on and why is there such a --
What happens is, as you well know, I can't remember in the past years 8 that a judge has ever imposed a dealt penalty. 9 These are always jury trials. A jury listens to the 10 case. There are, as you know, two phases: There's 11 the trial phase which is the guilt phase; and then 12 there's the penalty phase, the second trial, so to 13 speak. In the first part of the case, the jury 14 listens to the evidence and they decide did the 15 prosecution prove the defendant guilty of the crimes 16 and all the elements of the crimes beyond a 17 reasonable doubt and what degree of guilt the person 18 should be found guilty of. In most of those cases, 19 but not all, the jury found either first degree 20 murder, in which case they had to then go on to 21 decide the penalty. So assume for the moment that 22 the jury came back with a first or a second degree 23 verdict. Second degree verdict has also potential 24 for life but there's no death penalty. If a jury 25 comes back with a first degree verdict, then there's 1940 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET a penalty trial where the prosecution and the defense put on the evidence as to the specific aggravating circumstances provided by law. There are, I think, 17, which the prosecution has given notice of before the trial. We have to give a notice and we have to check off or circle or indicate which aggravating circumstances we are seeking to justify a dealt penalty on. The prosecution puts on whatever evidence it has in support of a death penalty. The defense puts on whatever evidence they choose in the diminution of a death penalty. We argue. The jury goes out and decides for a second time. The jury's power is absolute. And in Pennsylvania, and including Philadelphia obviously, the jury does not recommend anything. The jury fixes the penalty in Philadelphia and in Pennsylvania. In Philadelphia's juries last year, the jury fixed the penalty five times at death. If they could not agree -- and remember, the verdict has to be unanimous for a death penalty. If the jury could not agree, if it was 11 to or 8 to 4, 10 to 2, 24 the jury could not agree unanimously, it was 25 automatically a life sentence. 1941 1 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET
What were -- for the five death penalty, this was last year, 2000?
For 2000, I'll just give it to you this way. The first is Wilfredo Ramos who was 22, male, and white; the decedent was James Crawford, 36, male and black. Lance Arrington, 39, male and black; the decedent was Tondra Dennis, she was, 24, female and black. Daniel Dougherty, 25, male and white who killed Daniel and John Dougherty who were 4 and 3, respectfully; they were his children, both males, both white. Gregory Powell, 37, male and black killed Raymond Graves, 6 years old, male and black. Steven McRae, 18, male and black killed Kendrick Haskil and John Ford, 21 and 18, male and black. So we had three children murdered which the jury felt was deserving of the death penalty. 1942 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET
Last question revolves around the drug forfeiture dollars. What was the amount for last year?
Low. What was it, George, do you remember? It was about 2.4 million this past year down from 4.7 million about three or four years ago.
I'm going to give you Mr. Mosey to give you the breakdown, Councilman, so he can answer the question specifically.
I'm George Mosey. I'm the Deputy for Narcotics in the Philadelphia DA's Office. The vast majority of that money seized by the Philadelphia Police Department and we have a sharing agreement with the Philadelphia Police Department. The Control Substances Forfeiture Act requires that we spend that money on law enforcement purposes that are designed to enforce the Drug Act. 1943 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET So that money can only be spent in narcotics-related activity. We share that money with the Police Department in a way that takes the expenses for actually pursuing the forfeiture off the top and then the rest of the money is shared 60 percent to the Police Department and 40 percent to the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office.
When you say the expenses of pursuing the forfeiture, are you talking about the prosecution? What are the expenses off the top?
Preparation of the petitions and actually paying the salaries of the staff that we have on hand who actually prepare the petitions, who maintain the property, who do the advertising, who serve the petitions on perspective owners.
So I know we're dealing with $2.4 million, but a much more simple example, if it was a hundred dollars and your costs were 30 bucks, you take the 30 off and you guys split on the 60/40 basis the 70.
Actually, there are expenses incurred by the Police Department as well and they come off the top. So if you added another $20 to 1944 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET that scenario, our 30 would come off, the Police Department's 20, and then we would split the rest 60/40, 60 going to the Police Department.
After the expenses and the split portion, what happens to the dollars that the District Attorney's Office gets, the 40 percent?
We use that to pay salaries for law enforcement personnel who aren't directly involved with preparation of the petitions, those quote/unquote direct forfeiture expenses. So we actually pay salaries for the detectives who conduct proactive investigations in the division and the salaries of the attorneys involved. And the Police Department, they utilize that money to purchase supplies and to pay salaries as well.
No, it's our sound system. 1945 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET
Yes, we do have grants and, in fact, programs like the Public Nuisance Task Force are supported by a local law enforcement block grant money in addition to money from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. Most of our other grant money has expired, however.
What about the grants to groups and organizations, do you still do any of that?
Yes, we do provide money on a limited basis to community organization that submit proposals to the DA's Office.
Do you have sort of an accounting of that or how those dollars get spent, what's the program, how do you apply?
Well, we require that those organizations that submit proposals demonstrate that the money will be used to quote/unquote enforce the Drug Act. And we have, of course, don't require that go out and make arrests or anything like that, 1946 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET but they need to demonstrate that their activities are in fact related to curbing the occurrence of drug sales in their community, maintaining corners, even town watch operations.
What was the total amount of money spent for those purposes?
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Cohen.
I wanted to clear up at least in my mind, and maybe in the mind of everybody, the percentage of help you can give to people who consider themselves victimized by predatory lending, on one hand you've indicated that because of difficulties with the state law there's relatively little criminal prosecution that can be successful. On the other hand, you've indicated that there are case that the DA's Offices has 1947 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET handled and in those cases has been a very high rate, maybe almost a hundred percent rate of success. Could you give me kind of a percentage of the complaints that come in how effective and what percentage of cases roughly could we hope that under current laws there could be some success of criminal prosecution? I don't want to have a rosy future or you're going to get swamped with calls because everybody will think every case can be successfully prosecuted.
Well, if I may, instead of answering the question with a percentage which I don't know if I can, I can tell you this: In cases where -- and again these are home improvement cases. We haven't prosecuted anyone for purely predatory lending, for anything that goes by the name of predatory lending absent the home improvement fraud scheme. But for people who have been involved in both and have been the victim of the home improvement fraud scheme, for someone whose complaint is that money has been given to a contractor and no work has been done or so little work has been done that virtually nothing has been done, the chances of obtaining a successful 1948 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET prosecution are close to a hundred percent. For those persons who complain that they don't like the work that has been done, we refer that is a civil matter and we simply don't prosecute. Off the top of my head, again, to use a bad metaphor here, I would say that we probably get more calls in the nature of shoddy work than we do in the nature of no work. But of the calls that we get with regard to no work, we take them all.
I think that clarifies the picture very well. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Goode.
Thank you, Madam President. I'll be brief. I'm very interested in the breakdown that Councilman Nutter asked for in terms of complaints in the economic crimes unit, but I need something more immediate in terms of how many complaints you received about small business loans in the sub-prime market and if you've received no 23 small business lending in sub-prime market, if you could, I would like you to document that as soon as possible. 1949 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo.
Thank you. I have a question I'd like to follow-up on, the contractors and the predatory lending. After involving myself in a couple issues where especially senior citizens and that's when it's really troubling when someone involves themselves in a situation and winds up signing papers that just take their life savings away. After investigating a couple of these cases, I found that the contractors involved had licensing to do business or work in the City of Philadelphia. Is there any information, possibly, that we could put out especially to the most vulnerable, a phone number where a person can check to see that this is a legitimate contractor. That should be the first red flag if someone would call and this person not be licensed by the City of Philadelphia to do 1950 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET business. Is there anything that your unit can do beyond the criminal charges that possibly could arise that if a person's acting a contractor has no 5 licenses at all? I'm just searching for something that we could implement to educate our citizens about involving themselves. At this point, I don't think they realize that they may be dealing with a contractor that's not a contractor or a person that has no licensing to even begin or do the work.
Well, in response to that, I should point out that of the complaints that we've gotten, it hasn't been a deciding factor as to whether the person who is being complained about has a license or doesn't. We've had as many complaints about licensed professionals, so to speak, or contractors as we've had about unlicensed ones. Although I think it's important for a consumer to know whether someone is licensed, in terms of what we see from the criminal side, it hasn't played that large a role. I'd also note that one of the things that I found attractive in making reference to the legislation we had talked about before that had gone up to Harrisburg and had just died without being passed, one of the features of both of those bills 1951 2/23/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET was t barred anyone who was not licensed from, in essence, having any right to go after any customer in a contract action. So if you were an unlicensed contractor and you don't get paid and then you want to take your customer to court, you simply couldn't do it.