Prosecutor accused perjured cop of lying; D.A. announces review

Philadelphia Police Headquarters
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Philadelphia Police Officer Christopher Hulmes, currently under investigation for admitting to lying under oath in a 2011 drug case, was accused by a prosecutor three years before of admitting to perjury in a case stemming from another narcotics bust.

In response, District Attorney Seth Williams' Office, today told City Paper that it "is reviewing the officer's active cases." In recent weeks, Williams' office publicly backed the officer.

In 2008, Assistant District Attorney Kelly Surrick said Officer Hulmes told her he had lied about where police had recovered a gun during a July 2007 drug bust in North Philadelphia, according to a previously secret Internal Affairs investigation.

On July 25, 2007, police stated that they had discovered a handgun in an alley near the 3000 block of Warnock Street, close to 11th and Indiana. At three preliminary hearings, Hulmes, a member of the Narcotics Strike Force, testified under oath that the gun had been found in the alley. But Hulmes allegedly told prosecutor Surrick, after the case was scheduled for trial, that those statements were a lie, and were made as a favor to a confidential source.

Surrick stated that Hulmes "admitted the gun was not found in the alley" but "was actually recovered inside [the defendant's] residence," according to statements summarized in the Internal Affairs report. Hulmes allegedly stated that "he wanted to help" the defendant because he had "previously supplied [him] with useful information." City Paper is withholding the defendant's name.

Surrick reported the incident to her supervisor, Christopher Diviny, now a prosecutor in the Philadelphia U.S. Attorney's Office. D.A. Special Investigations Unit Chief David M. Augenbraun contacted Police Internal Affairs, sending a memo on Aug. 21, 2008, and followed up with a letter the next day detailing the allegations.

Police then took Officer Hulmes off the street as Internal Affairs began its investigation. They also removed Officer Mark Bates, who claimed to have discovered the gun in the alley, from his regular duties, pending the probe.

But the charges were not sustained — meaning they could neither be proven nor disproven. Hulmes denied the allegations, and fellow police officers backed his account.

Civil rights lawyer David Rudovsky says he faults the Internal Affairs unit for not explaining why it did not find Surrick to be credible.

There is "no explanation at all why an assistant district attorney, who is prosecuting these cases, would make up something like this," says Rudovsky, a University of Pennsylvania Law School professor who frequently handles police-misconduct cases. "For them to say, 'It's her word against his,' means that you could almost never prove this kind of allegation."

Rudovsky is advising former Assistant District Attorney A.J. Thomson, who says that he confronted his superiors in December 2013 about Hulmes' credibility.

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Officer Hulmes was placed under an Internal Affairs investigation and benched again on Aug. 6 of this year, the same day that City Paper revealed that he had testified to lying under oath in a 2011 narcotics-and-gun arrest in Kensington involving a man named Arthur Rowland. In that case, the officer admitted to lying in a search-warrant application and while testifying in a preliminary hearing. His partner, Officer Patrick Banning, signed the search-warrant application in question; Banning has also been taken off the street and placed under investigation.

Hulmes said that he changed the timing and circumstances surrounding Rowland's arrest and the search of his vehicle to protect a confidential source. That motive remains unsubstantiated and was hotly disputed by the alleged informant in statements made to Internal Affairs.

The two stories bear a striking resemblance: Hulmes allegedly stated to Surrick, and then did state in the Rowland case, that he had lied under oath — but only to help out a source.

Hulmes' admitted lying in the Rowland case has upended open drug cases, and raised the specter of convicted defendants fighting to have sentences overturned and filing costly civil suits against the city. It has also put District Attorney Williams' office under scrutiny for relying on an officer who had admitted to lying under oath.

In January 2012, Common Please Judge James Murray Lynn sharply rebuked Hulmes for his actions, and criticized prosecutors for calling him to testify against Rowland.

The D.A.'s office did turn over a thick file to defense lawyers, including the transcript from the hearing in which Hulmes admitted lying and an Internal Affairs investigation related to the Rowland case, but it only did so in the wake of the City Paper story. And to defense lawyers' amazement, the DA's office had continued to stand by him and prosecute cases in which he was involved.

The D.A.'s office has not provided the Internal Affairs report detailing Surrick's allegations to defense attorneys. City Paper was denied access to the report from Internal Affairs, which said the document remains secret because it was initiated "internally" and not by a member of the public; the paper only obtained the report after it was attached to a motion filed this Monday by public defenders in the Court of Common Pleas.

The D.A.'s Office had a legal responsibility to provide an account of Surrick's allegations to defense attorneys, says Rudovsky, regardless of the fact that Internal Affairs did not sustain the allegation. Their failure to do so constitutes a violation of the Brady doctrine requirement that prosecutors to turn over exculpatory evidence to defense attorneys, he says.

"Surrick's complaint, which her supervisors knew [about], that Hulmes basically said that he lied about a fact, is Brady material," says Rudovksy. "That information known to the D.A., plus all of the other information that that they've been hiding the past couple years about Hulmes, is another example of them violating the Brady doctrine."

Attempts to reach Surrick, who is no longer with the D.A., were unsuccessful.

The D.A.'s Office had declined repeated requests to discuss Hulmes with City Paper until contacted yesterday about Surrick's allegations.

"Apparently, the 2008 allegations were not designated for disclosure because the prior District Attorney's administration [under Lynne Abraham] declined prosecution and Internal Affairs found the allegations not sustained," D.A. spokesperson Tasha Jamerson said in an e-mail. "In light of the current investigation, the District Attorney's Office is reviewing the officer's active cases."

Just two weeks ago, Jamerson reportedly told the Daily News that the D.A.'s Office still believed Hulmes was a credible witness. It is unclear whether the Williams Administration was aware of Surrick's allegations, what the current review would consist of, or whether old cases involving Hulmes would be reopened. The office also has not said whether Hulmes could face prosecution for perjury.

Abraham did not respond to a request for comment.

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Hulmes and fellow officers set up narcotics surveillance targeting the block of 3000 Warnock Street on July 25, 2007. Hulmes was the operation's "eyes," meaning an officer observing from a discrete location. He "quarterbacked" the bust while watching from a nearby rooftop, and stated that he radioed for police to check a McDonalds cup in the alley for crack.

Officer Bates told investigators that he recovered a clear bag with 26 packets of what appeared to be crack in the McDonalds cup. Searching for more drugs that might be nearby, Bates stated that he found the Hi-Point Handgun about five feet away. At the time, he completed a property receipt affirming that he had found the gun in the alley.

According to Hulmes, three sellers and two buyers were arrested, and Officer Brian Irizarry secured consent from the defendant's common-law wife to search their Warnock Street home. Officer Irizarry stated that he recovered a scale, packaging, a 14-gram crack rock and a clear bag holding eight red packets of crack. He told investigators that no gun was found in the house.

Hulmes testified in three preliminary hearings in the case — on Oct. 16, 2007, Feb. 4, 2008, and April 8, 2008. Each time, according to Internal Affairs, he stated that the gun was recovered in the alley.

But Hulmes asked to speak with Surrick in a court anteroom on Aug. 4, 2008, Surrick stated, and said "he would now tell her how 'we' helped the defendant." Surrick stated that Hulmes told her that he wanted to alert her to the lie because the defendant was aware of the ruse; Hulmes didn't want his lawyer to bring it up by surprise in court.

Surrick stated that Hulmes also assured her that he "didn't put the gun on anyone else though, it was just put in the alley."

Surrick, according to her account, asked to meet with Hulmes again so she could explain her ethical obligations as a prosecutor. She hoped to persuade Hulmes to come forward on his own.

Hulmes proceeded to tell Surrick, she stated, that she had it all wrong. He contended that he had never told her that he lied in court about where the gun was recovered; instead, he had said that he threatened three defendants to plant the gun on them if they did not cooperate. According to the Internal Affairs account of Surrick's statements, Hulmes "allegedly related that he knew this tactic was not moral, but it was not criminal." Hulmes allegedly told Surrick that he "would never plant evidence and did not want a problem with the District Attorney's Office or a problem with his job."

Rudovsky says that while the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that is legal for "a detective can lie to a suspect during an interrogation" that "a threat to a witness or suspect that [an] officer will lie at a legal proceeding is, in my opinion, not permissible and is illegal."

Hulmes told investigators that he had also lied to the defendant by stating that he had observed him in possession of the gun — which he had not. Surrick stated that Officer Hulmes was clearly worried about his job and reputation. Hulmes told investigators that the defendant was not a confidential informant, and that his unit has a policy against their use. He also said he had received no information from the man.

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The Internal Affairs document states that Hulmes "vehemently denied ever making a statement...that would imply he had perjured himself," and told investigators that Surrick's allegations were the product of a misunderstanding. Surrick, a prosecutor in the D.A.'s Major Trial Unit, had become emotional and overwhelmed by the complexity of the case, he said. Surrick told him, Hulmes stated, that the job was "long and confusing," and that he "explained each facet of the job to ADA Surrick as if he was talking to someone who had no previous knowledge of drug surveillance."

When Hulmes later met with Surrick after their initial conversation, he said that she told him that "she would have a hard time putting the officer on the stand since he would be perjuring himself."

Hulmes "attempted to clarify what he had actually said" and said that Surrick became "visibly upset" and appeared to be ready to "start crying," stating "that she hated these cases and wished she had pled it out."

Surrick said that Assistant District Attorney Robert Frantz and Officer Danny Wright were in the room during her conversation with Hulmes.

Frantz told investigators that he had overheard only portions of the conversation, including Hulmes saying "I should tell you in case they bring it up," "we didn't put a gun on anybody" and "we got good, good information from the guy." Officer Wright stated that he was talking with Frantz and could not hear the conversation between Hulmes and Surrick.

Two codefendants in the case gave investigators information suggesting that the gun had been recovered in the house. One said he heard the defendant telling an officer, "If I show you where the gun is, will you not take my family?" Another stated that he saw two defendants taken inside the house, and that a black officer (Hulmes is white) later came out holding a handgun.

Internal Affairs stated that the two were not credible, partly because their accounts contradicted that of Officer Hulmes.

The defendant's common-law wife also told a D.A. detective that there was no gun present and, according to Internal Affairs, the defense never brought up issues with the gun recovery. But it might have been a moot point. On March 1, 2010, the D.A. dropped charges against the defendant.