Cop exposed for lying taken off street

Philadelphia Police Officer Christopher Hulmes was taken off the street yesterday, the same day City Paper exposed that he had admitted in December 2011 to lying in open court and on a search warrant affidavit.

"Officer Hulmes has been taken off the street pending an open [Internal Affairs] investigation," said police spokesperson Officer Tanya Little. Hulmes, a member of the Narcotics Strike Force, has been assigned to administrative duties with the Differential Police Response Unit, a frequent holding pen for officers under review.

Attorney Guy Sciolla, who represented Arthur Rowland in a drug and gun case in which Hulmes admitted lying, said action should have been taken sooner. "It's the same thing as closing the barn door after the horse is gone. Why wouldn't they have done that two years ago?"

The Police Department said on Tuesday that they had no knowledge of Hulmes' testimony before being contacted by City Paper.

It is certain, however, that members of the District Attorney's Office were familiar with Officer Hulmes' admitted perjury. But it is unclear precisely who knew, and when.

Common Pleas Court Judge James McMurray Lynn harshly criticized Hulmes' lying in a January 2012 ruling and granted a defense motion in the Rowland case that suppressed key evidence. 

Assistant District Attorney Joe Schultz was present for the damaging portions of Hulmes' testimony, and Assistant District Attorney Tracy Piatkowski was in court for Lynn's ruling and stated that she would "review it with my supervisors."

But prosecutors have nonetheless continued to call Officer Hulmes to testify in an unknown number of narcotics casess since then — and have declined to explain why. In August 2013, attorney Christopher P. Phillips filed a motion requesting that evidence of Hulmes' lying be admitted into evidence in the case of Terrance Clark, who faces drugs, weapons and assault charges after being arrested by Hulmes in 2010.

Sciolla told City Paper that an assistant district attorney handling the case, A.J. Thomson, then argued against trying the case.

"I was informed that he confronted his supervisor and told them that he didn't want to put the case on," said Sciolla.

Thomson, who has declined to speak with CP, no longer works at the D.A.'s Office. It is unclear why.

"While this action should have been taken in January 2012 after Judge Lynn's ruling it is still better late than never in terms of the Police Department examining all of the details of this case," says civil rights attorney David Rudovsky, who is representing Thomson. "I think it's also important for the District Attorney of Philadelphia to let the city know what its plans are with respect to prosecution of cases in which officer Hulmes is involved—both current cases and cases that were prosecuted since January of 2012."

Defense lawyers say that prosecutors had a legal responsibility to turn over evidence of Officer Hulmes' lying, and that cases that depended upon his testimony may now be subject to challenge.

"The failure of the District Attorney's Office," says Sciolla, "is now going to cause an avalanche of requests in all the cases in which he testified, and on which credibility decisions were made in favor of him, to be reexamined. And that obviously could have been avoided if the District Attorney's Office had taken the appropriate action at the appropriate time."

The move to take Hulmes off the street comes amidst serious corruption scandals involving city narcotics officers, six of whom were arrested last week in the face of a sprawling 26-count federal indictment alleging a rogue operation of wanton violence and theft. Prosecutors' use of Officer Hulmes highlights questions about why District Attorney Seth WIlliams waited until December 2012 to stop calling the six officers to testify — long after serious allegations were made, and reportedly long after federal prosecutors stopped working with them.

In his January 2012 ruling, Judge Lynn called Officer Hulmes' admitted lying "reprehensible," saying "you cannot lie to the judges and expect the judges to do justice. It cannot be done. It is not the way this country was founded; it is not the way this country works." He also chastised the District Attorney's office, insisting that "you cannot put an officer on the witness stand who is going to say, 'I lied to an issuing magistrate.' You cannot do that."

Defendants will likely also file federal civil lawsuits against Hulmes and the City of Philadelphia, alleging that the officer violated their civil rights and that the city had advance knowledge of the officer's credibility problem. Sciolla says the city has already spent $150,000 to settle with Rowland and his brother Paul Ricks, who was also arrested that day.

Officer Patrick Banning, who participated in Rowland's arrest and whose name appears on the search warrant affidavit for Rowland's home and vehicle, is still on the street.