The lawyer representing a former Allentown police officer accused of sexual assault is trying to get the case thrown out before it goes to trial.
In a motion and a series of recent hearings before Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas Judge Thomas M. Caffrey, attorney James Burke has argued that the case against Jason Krasley is tainted by alleged prosecutorial misconduct and “egregious” errors in discovery.
The ongoing hearings are the latest twist in the more than year-old case that has seen the attorney general’s office take over prosecution. Several charges against Krasley and another Allentown police officer already have been dropped.
“The Prosecution of the Defendant under the circumstances of the overreaching and egregious Prosecutorial Misconduct that has plagued this case from its inception, the continued role of Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office Detectives in remaining involved as investigators has so tainted the truth determining process as to violate the Defendant’s Rights to Due Process of Law,” Burke wrote in a motion filed in February.
Krasley, 48, of Upper Milford Township, is charged with kidnapping, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, intimidation of a witness and criminal coercion.
Allegations against Krasley first came to light in a 2024 whistleblower lawsuit filed against the Allentown Police Department. That suit was withdrawn, but in January 2025 Krasley and Allentown police Sgt. Evan Weaver were arrested on sex crime allegations. Those charges were dropped in February after the accuser against the two was no longer willing to cooperate with the investigation.
Krasley still faces a series of charges in other cases including kidnapping and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. Alleged victims of Krasley testified at a pre-trial hearing last year that he coerced sex workers into performing sexual acts in order to avoid arrest. Krasley, through his lawyer, has denied the allegations.
Theft charges that had been filed against Krasley also have since been dropped.
Krasley retired from the Allentown Police Department in 2021. He was fired from his position as an investigator with SafeSport, a watchdog organization that probes allegations of sexual abuse in sports, following his arrest.
Burke’s pre-trial motion argues that Eric Dowdle, a former first Lehigh County district attorney who handled Krasley’s prosecution before the case was transferred to the attorney general’s office, promised the women who testified against him “special consideration” in their own legal cases.
According to the motion, the FBI led an investigation into misconduct within the Allentown Police Department’s vice unit, of which Krasley was a part, beginning in 2019, but closed the investigation in 2023 and brought forth no criminal charges.
Following the closed FBI investigation, Burke claims, Dowdle pursued a grand jury investigation into Krasley and Weaver in 2024. According to District Attorney Gavin Holihan, the DA’s office took over the case against Krasley and Weaver in order to expedite the process, and said it was a timely matter because Weaver was employed by the Allentown Police Department when the allegations came forward. (Weaver remains on the force following the dismissal of the charges against him.)
The motion alleges that Dowdle pursued the case against Krasley despite the closure of the FBI investigation because he was “unhappy” with those results, and pursued the case in an “inflammatory and highly prejudicial” manner.
The case was transferred to the AG’s office in August 2025 because Dowdle had, while working as a criminal defense attorney, represented one of the victim’s boyfriends in criminal cases between 2011 and 2015.
At least two of Krasley’s accusers face charges including drug possession and retail theft in Lehigh County, and one had an outstanding domestic relations bench warrant in Luzerne County, according to testimony.
Burke argued that those witnesses were given special consideration; one of the victims had her rent paid by the Lehigh County District Attorney’s office, he said. Holihan, testifying in a recent hearing, said that the DA’s office occasionally uses drug asset forfeiture money for relocation or rental assistance in order to keep witnesses safe during a case.
Dowdle, who was subpoenaed to testify in the case Wednesday in Lehigh County Court, denied that Krasley’s alleged victims were given special consideration in their own criminal cases in exchange for their testimony.
Dowdle said that despite his representation of one of the women’s boyfriends, he did not know the alleged victim well prior to his handling of Krasley’s prosecution.
“She was a name,” he said.
Burke, in his motion, also alleges that Dowdle was a close friend of Allentown police Officer Randy Fey, who along with officer David Howells III, filed the whistleblower lawsuit alleging widespread corruption, misconduct and retaliation in the Allentown police vice unit. The lawsuit specifically names Krasley and alleges that he used his position as a police officer to receive sexual favors from prostitutes.
The lawsuit was dismissed in 2024 due to a filing error, according to attorney Dennis Charles.
Burke contends the conflict has not ended under the attorney general’s office, because it has maintained Lehigh County Detectives Gregg Dietz and James Bruchak as the original affiants, and the detectives continue to be involved, which he argues is improper since the case was re-assigned from the county.
Dowdle declined to answer follow-up questions from The Morning Call because he has been sequestered by the court. He is expected to testify again in a future hearing.
Even though Burke veered into claims about prosecutorial misconduct during recent court hearings, those hearings were meant to address alleged problems with the attorney general’s handling of discovery materials.
Caffrey said that arguments and testimony on prosecutorial misconduct claims would come “at a later date.” He became visibly frustrated at Burke’s questions that were unrelated to discovery issues, and said he is concerned that pre-trial hearings will drag on for months.
“My schedule is booked through the end of the year,” Caffrey said.
In addition to misconduct, Burke also has claimed that the attorney general’s office failed to turn over important documents that he needed to build his case, including recordings of allegedly “exculpatory” statements from witnesses.
One of those recordings is allegedly of phone calls between Corderro Cody, an Allentown man who was sentenced in 2016 to 30 years in prison for sex trafficking, and one of Krasley’s alleged victims.
In those phone calls, Cody pressures two of the women into making allegations against Krasley, HSI Special Agent Stefanie Snyder testified in court Friday.
Snyder said that she recalls listening to the recorded calls, but the recordings were only ever copied onto CDs, and were destroyed in 2020.
Snyder also said that the women never made those allegations against Krasley to her.
Julianne Danchak, senior deputy attorney general, said she disagreed that any of the discovery evidence that allegedly was not provided is exculpatory.
“None of these materials exonerate your client,” Danchak said.
In a late March hearing, Danchak said that the Attorney General’s office turned over all relevant documents to Burke. However, at a hearing Wednesday, Danchak said she recently discovered that she mistakenly failed to transfer some of the documents to Burke’s hard drive.
Burke called the error “egregious” and said he planned to file an additional motion to dismiss the case based on what he alleges is a violation of Pennsylvania’s “Rule 600,” which is the right to a speedy trial.
Burke also asked Dowdle about an interview he gave to WFMZ Channel 69 News where he showed a reporter a stack of printed emails from his time handling the Krasley case. He confirmed in court that he had retained the copies of those emails “in anticipation of misconduct allegations” brought forward by Burke, which he believed the emails would disprove.
“I know I was being thrown under the bus,” Dowdle said.
Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.