\u201cThat\u2019s the sensationalized stuff,\u201d Bilal says. \u201cWhen you use words like \u2018scandal\u2019 or \u2018corruption,\u2019 it\u2019s \u2018got you\u2019 journalism. You\u2019re accusing me of a crime and yet I haven\u2019t been arrested.\u201d On the contrary, Bilal says that transparency and efficiency are vastly improved. The reforms simply took time. \u201cI think we\u2019re turning a curve,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Critics remain unconvinced. In May, a group of Philly judges issued a court order to Bilal, threatening to appoint a \u201cspecial master<\/a>\u201d to oversee sheriff\u2019s sales if her office can\u2019t step up its duties. That came on the heels of the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority \u2014 a state watchdog of City spending \u2014 recommending that the Sheriff\u2019s Office be eliminated altogether, <\/a>pointing to financial mismanagement and its reputation as a \u201cstereotype of patronage and corruption\u201d in Philadelphia. The good government organization Committee of Seventy has also advocated for abolishing the office,<\/a> contending that the duties can easily be distributed to other agencies. And in 2024, State Representative Jared Solomon took the extraordinary step of releasing a public letter,<\/a> addressed to a local judge, calling for interventions at the office. It was a last ditch\u00a0effort, Solomon wrote, \u201cbefore further exploring legislative powers to hold hearings, gather testimony or documents, or initiate an investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n None of these efforts have seemed to matter. If anything, Bilal appears to have more support than ever among the city\u2019s political elite. In March, City Council honored Bilal as a pillar of the community<\/a>\u00a0during Women\u2019s History Month \u2014 and not for the first time.<\/a><\/p>\n Why do people want to defend a scandal-ridden sheriff? And just how much longer can this game keep going?<\/p>\n Playing the victim <\/p>\n Bilal has maintained a clear, consistent message over the years: It\u2019s political opponents, not her job performance, who are behind the complaints about her leadership. It\u2019s a narrative Bilal has leaned into since before she became sheriff. During her nearly 20-year stint as the president of the Guardian Civic League, an organization for Black police officers, Bilal legitimately faced retaliation for speaking out against the Philadelphia Police Department.<\/p>\n One of many public battles with the PPD and rank-and-file members unfolded in 2009, when Bilal initiated a class-action lawsuit that brought down Domelights.com, a message board on which cops frequently posted racist screeds. A few years later, she pushed City Council to pass legislation banning offensive symbols<\/a> on City property \u2014 after whistleblowers revealed that a city-owned vehicle was sporting a Confederate flag decal and some officers had white supremacy tattoos on display \u2014 and got Mayor Jim Kenney to sign it.<\/p>\n But crossing the \u201cblue wall of silence\u201d had consequences. \u201cMy life was threatened,\u201d Bilal said in a 2017 Philly Mag interview.<\/a> \u201cThey tried to make me shut up, which I\u2019ll never do, especially when I\u00a0know I\u2019m right.\u201d After the Domelights saga, Bilal got dragged in the press for her alleged \u201cdouble-dipping\u201d of personal income. In 2013, it was reported that Bilal had been collecting a PPD salary while working a second job as public safety director in nearby Colwyn Borough \u2014 a clear violation of ethics rules, according to Internal Affairs investigators. The matter was resolved without any punishment and Bilal retired from the PPD, but she told Philly Mag that \u201call of that was phony,\u201d and \u201cthey were coming at me because of my outspokenness.\u201d<\/p>\n Bilal has weathered each controversy since becoming sheriff with similar aplomb. She deflects criticism by going after critics. She talks publicly about being besieged by rivals. And to be fair, the first female sheriff in the city\u2019s history didn\u2019t exactly receive a warm welcome. Less than 36 hours after<\/p>\n Bilal was sworn in, agents from the Controller\u2019s Office launched a brand new investigation, finding evidence of 101 missing firearms in the sheriff\u2019s armory. While Bilal initially pinned the errors on her predecessor, she took a different approach three years later, when a follow-up report concluded that only 26 of the missing guns had been recovered.<\/p>\n \u201cThey constantly keep trying to put it on this administration as to what they claim are missing firearms,\u201d she said during a press conference, alleging that the guns were likely burned or traded \u2014 not lost in the wind. \u201cIf the controller would have done their job 10 years ago, and audited that office, maybe we would not be here.\u201d<\/p>\n Philly loves a charismatic underdog. Bilal is adeptly aware of that. However, a well-trod persona is not the only thing protecting the sheriff. Bilal \u2014 and, more important, the institution itself \u2014 has friends in high places, too.<\/p>\n Allegiances are often painfully obvious in this city. Not so with Bilal. She won her first election without being endorsed by the city Democratic Party; she has never been firmly encamped with progressive groups.<\/p>\n Today, her web of support continues to eschew tribalism. To illustrate: Two of Bilal\u2019s biggest supporters, as evidenced by the high number of joint press conferences they hold together, are District Attorney Larry Krasner<\/a> and State Senator Sharif Street, who occupy very different stations within the local party. Last winter, Street, a centrist and consummate insider, celebrated the sheriff.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we talk about how can we have a greater level of trust between law enforcement and the community? Sheriff Bilal is leading the way in doing that,\u201d said Street. Then, in January, Bilal was flanked by Krasner, a progressive firebrand, as she delivered a tirade against President Trump and ICE \u2014 declaring \u201cYou don\u2019t want this smoke\u201d in a viral moment.<\/p>\n \n The sheriff\u2019s relationships \u2014 at least with elected officials \u2014 are those of a political survivor, not an ideologue. At the same time, Bilal, a former secretary of the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP, has ties to several identity-based groups. She\u2019s a founding member of the Black Muslim Leadership Council, which also counts Ryan Boyer, the head of the building trades unions, and several members of City Council in its ranks.<\/p>\n Bilal and allies have often invoked her identity as a Black woman in responses to critics \u2014 suggesting, at times, that a double standard exists for White pols. On the other hand, more than one source, speaking on background, said the racial politics of this city are part of what\u2019s keeping Bilal in office. There\u2019s a sense inside City Hall that nobody wants to be the first elected official to condemn the first Black female sheriff, given her popularity and ability to defend herself. Plus, it\u2019s not like the problems of the office began with Bilal.<\/p>\n Political patronage, a Philly tradition <\/p>\n The muted criticism is not just about the sheriff, but also about what the office represents in the grand scheme of Philly patronage. Patronage is the old-school philosophy \u2014 I scratch your back, you scratch mine \u2014 that guides the invisible hand of city government in so many ways. It can take many forms: a ward leader\u2019s nephew getting a desk job, maybe, or a no-bid contract getting steered to a political ally. For decades, the Sheriff\u2019s Office has been known as a steady source of Black patronage jobs. But if pols suddenly came after the office in droves, how many other patronage mills might be\u00a0exposed, and forced to reform too? \u201cIf it was truly an outlier, the Sheriff\u2019s Office would be a bad look for the Democratic Party,\u201d says Ken Smukler, the longtime aide to Philly\u2019s Democratic Party boss and former U.S. Representative Bob Brady, who himself spent time in prison for campaign finance violations.<\/p>\n If anything, Smukler adds, the office has been a \u201crelease valve for the party.\u201d Votes aren\u2019t free. Steerable jobs and resources are what fuel any political machine. That need exists whether or not we have a Sheriff\u2019s Office. Which is exactly the kind of justification that has long reigned supreme\u00a0in this city, dismaying reformers. Take it from our former mayor, Jim Kenney, who, in 2021, spoke about the corruption charges of union honcho John \u201cJohnny Doc\u201d Dougherty: \u201cI feel bad for the fact that they work really hard in bringing a lot of good things to the city,\u201d Kenney said, embodying the Philly Shrug. \u201cPeople have been convicted before and the city moves on. That\u2019s the way it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the first people to raise a red flag about Bilal was her first chief financial officer, Brett Mandel. In her first 100 days, Mandel was fired after scrutinizing \u201coff-book\u201d spending. He later wrote a book (and filed a wrongful termination lawsuit, which he settled for six figures) detailing some of the controversial activity inside the Sheriff\u2019s Office \u2014 like excessive spending on advertising and hiring a team of consultants whose duties were unclear to staff. (Bilal, for her part, notes that Mandel was only there for several weeks and based his claims on a system designed by her predecessor.)<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody knows this is going on,\u201d Mandel told The Inquirer, speaking about the off-book spending. <\/a>\u201cIt\u2019s like a wink-and-a-nod deal.\u201d The Sheriff\u2019s Office may be especially prone to malfeasance due to the millions of dollars in assets from sheriff\u2019s sales it handles on an annual basis. By and large, those transactions fall outside the normal checks and balances of the government.<\/p>\n \u201cShe ran to be a reformer, but then, for whatever reason, decided to do the opposite.\u201d \u2014 former Controller staffer<\/p>\n Historically, proceeds from sales were deposited into the sheriff\u2019s \u201ccustodial accounts,\u201d which served a variety of purposes. Custodial accounts were used to pay down the debt on delinquent properties prior to transferring the deeds to buyers. But they were also used to pay for administrative items like\u00a0office supplies \u2014 or, in Bilal\u2019s case, a staff party at Chickie\u2019s & Pete\u2019s.<\/a> Bilal insists the office has come a long way. In fact, remember those controller recommendations that Bilal received during her transition back in 2019? Well, plenty of them are in place now, the sheriff says. For example, Bilal has done a digital overhaul of the internal accounting system and created siloed spending in order to conform with City standards. The last controller\u2019s audit report on her office was published three years ago, which is when everyone passed judgment on her. \u201cI\u2019m over here trying to change the narrative, so that when I leave this office, it can finally function in a professional manner,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n To wit: The sheriff is legally obligated to publicly advertise its sales of delinquent properties. When she arrived, the advertising budget was close to $8 million a year, which she claims to have slashed, dropping the ad costs per case by nearly 70 percent. \u201cWe made a decision to reduce the millions of dollars we were paying to advertise taking people\u2019s homes,\u201d says Bilal.<\/p>\n