accusations he stole more than $5,000 on the job<\/a> in 2019 after a series of his former colleagues testified against him Monday during a three-hour preliminary hearing in Lehigh County Court.<\/p>\nDetective Ryan Murray, who now works with the Lehigh County District Attorney\u2019s Office, told prosecutors that he and Krasley counted $16,000 in cash during a May 2019 search at a barbershop on Hamilton Street.<\/p>\n
Another officer said he found about $8,100 during the search.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Commonwealth cannot prove theft in this case. It appears like a theft, but that\u2019s about it. The one thing I know is they didn\u2019t prove it was [Krasley].\u201d<\/p>\n
Defense attorney James Burke<\/p>\n
But Murray and several other officers testified Monday that thousands of dollars were missing by the time supervisors counted the money again at the Vice Unit\u2019s headquarters that day.<\/p>\n
As vice officers crowded around Detective James Graves\u2019 office to figure out where the money was, Krasley \u201cstood up to leave\u201d and said he didn\u2019t remember how much money he counted earlier that day, Murray testified.<\/p>\n
Krasley asked Murray to tell the Lehigh County prosecutor in charge of the case that Krasley \u201cf—ed up the count\u201d of how much money was found at the barbershop.<\/p>\n
Now-Sgt. Christopher Diehl said he ordered now-Patrolman Damien Lobach to \u201crewrite\u201d the inventory receipt so the amount matched what the vice team had at the office.<\/p>\n
Diehl said he initially believed there was a \u201cmiscount\u201d of seized money but later reported the incident because he thought it may have been stolen.<\/p>\n
‘Should have been thrown out’<\/p>\n
James Burke, Krasley\u2019s defense attorney, argued prosecutors did little to prove any money was stolen during the search.<\/p>\n
He seized upon the possibility offered by Diehl that officers may have gotten the first count wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt should have been thrown out here.”<\/p>\n
James Burke, Jason Krasley’s attorney<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Commonwealth cannot prove theft in this case,\u201d Burke said. \u201dIt appears like a theft, but that\u2019s about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one thing I know is they didn\u2019t prove it was this guy,\u201d Burke said, gesturing to Krasley sitting next to him.<\/p>\n
Senior District Judge Jacqueline Taschner ordered all three charges against Krasley \u2014 theft, receiving stolen property and tampering with evidence \u2014 to move forward to trial.<\/p>\n
But Taschner told prosecutors they presented a \u201cdearth of direct evidence\u201d in the preliminary hearing.<\/p>\n
Burke said he was \u201cshocked\u201d by the state\u2019s lack of direct evidence against his client.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is insane that this is the evidence we\u2019re in court on,\u201d he said during the hearing.<\/p>\n
After Taschner\u2019s ruling, he said, \u201cIt should have been thrown out here.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 A former Allentown police officer facing a slew of charges will no longer be prosecuted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,62727,62728,62729,62730,62731,62724,121,120,715,62725,62726,5703],"class_list":["post-135913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-cop-arrested","tag-allentown-cop-case","tag-allentown-cop-sex-trafficking","tag-allentown-cop-sexual-assault","tag-allentown-cop-theft","tag-allentown-corrupt-cop","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-allentown-police","tag-allentown-rape","tag-jason-krasely-court-case","tag-jason-krasley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}