The Philadelphia Inquirer reported<\/a> that three of his own prosecutors testified against him in federal court, and The Philadelphia Citizen published a pointed critique of his tenure in office.<\/p>\nThe courtroom hearing, held before U.S. District Court Judge Paul S. Diamond, grew out of Krasner’s office attempting to overturn the 2009 second-degree murder conviction of Dennis Johnson, who was found guilty in the shooting of a man at a North Philadelphia convenience store.<\/p>\n
What began as an exoneration hearing turned into an examination of conduct inside the district attorney’s office itself.<\/p>\n
Three Prosecutors Testify Against Their Own Boss<\/p>\n
Katherine Ernst, chief of training in the law division, took the stand first.<\/p>\n
She was followed by Steven Wildberger, an assistant district attorney in the appeals unit, and David Napiorski, who heads the law division. All three still work for Krasner.<\/p>\n
Their testimony was damaging.<\/p>\n
They provided meeting records, internal memos, and emails documenting conversations with Krasner about how his office handled errors in court filings tied to the Johnson case.<\/p>\n
Each painted a picture of an office that appeared more focused on protecting itself than on pursuing justice. Napiorski indicated that Krasner’s conduct bordered on a cover-up.<\/p>\n
Wildberger described being told not to bring printed materials or written items to meetings with the district attorney. Krasner did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The hearing did not take place in a vacuum. Federal courts have previously disbarred and suspended prosecutors from Krasner’s office for lying to the court.<\/p>\n
The state Supreme Court found additional instances of misconduct and, in an extraordinary step, appointed the state attorney general to oversee future efforts by Krasner’s office to undo prior convictions.<\/p>\n
A Cold Case Charged After 26 Years<\/p>\n
Separately, on September 1, Krasner’s office announced charges against Alexis Flores for the 1981 kidnapping and murder of five-year-old I’riana De Jesus, whose body was found on the 3900 block of North 6th Street in August 2000.<\/p>\n
Flores was captured in February 2026 in Lepaera, Honduras, through a joint effort by the FBI’s Transnational Anti-Gang Task Force and Honduran authorities, then extradited to Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
He faces charges including murder, kidnapping, and unlawful restraint.<\/p>\n
The victim’s mother, Lizasuain De Jesus, told the district attorney’s office that 25 years of waiting had been difficult and that she had not always believed an arrest would come.<\/p>\n
She thanked the detectives who kept the case active.<\/p>\n
A Reform-Minded DA With a Disputed Record<\/p>\n
Against this backdrop, The Philadelphia Citizen published an open-letter opinion piece calling on Krasner to move beyond rhetoric toward practical criminal-justice solutions.<\/p>\n
The piece acknowledged shared ground with the DA on issues such as cash bail and over-incarceration, while arguing that Krasner had prioritized high-profile positioning over workable reform over the course of a decade in office.<\/p>\n
Churchill’s observation, cited in The Philadelphia Citizen piece, that some people change their principles to serve their party resonated through a week in which Krasner’s office faced challenges from within its own ranks, from the federal bench, and from longtime critics in Philadelphia civic media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"source: thephiladelphiacitizen Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is under scrutiny from multiple directions this week, as The Philadelphia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-280676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280676","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=280676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}