Dozens more drug convictions tossed due to dirty cop

The legal fallout from disgraced ex-narcotics cop Jeffrey Walker continued today, as a judge overturned another 59 of his drug convictions.

The cases were first reopened then dismissed by Common Pleas Judge Sheila Woods-Skipper as part of an agreement between the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office and the Defender Association of Philadelphia.

To date, 162 convictions resulting from Walker's arrests have been tossed out, said attorney Bradley Bridge of the Defender Association, which filed most of the petitions to reopen the cases.

Walker, 46, was arrested last year after being caught in an FBI sting stealing money from the home of a drug dealer whom he framed and had arrested.

Walker has since pleaded guilty to attempted robbery and carrying a firearm during a crime of violence and is cooperating with federal authorities in the prosecution of other dirty narcotics cops.

"The District Attorney's Office has acted appropriately and professionally in resolving these cases, and are to be commended for that," Bridge said.

"It can't be easy to reopen convictions, and here they're doing it appropriately and often," he added.

All of the defendants in the 59 cases have completed their sentences except two, Bridge said.

Those men, who both pleaded guilty to possession with intent to deliver drugs, should be released within a few days, he said.

"In agreeing [not to prosecute] these cases, it is by no means the position of the District Attorney that these [defendants] are innocent," said Assistant District Attorney Robin Godfrey, chief of the Post Conviction Relief Act Unit.

"But in the interest of justice, we're agreeing to relief," she added.

Woods-Skipper upheld 47 convictions yesterday and will address other unresolved cases at a Nov. 7 hearing, Bridge and Godfrey said.

Walker, a 24-year veteran of the city police force and a narcotics cop since 1999, was arrested in a May 2013 FBI sting in which he planted drugs on a dealer he had arrested and stole $15,000 from the dealer's Kingsessing house.