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Did top deputy D.A. go down fighting?

A TOP DEPUTY in the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office lost his job on Friday, weeks after he allegedly lost his temper at a Center City bar.

Brian Grady with his eventual boss Seth Williams (right) in a 2009 forum for candidates vying to become district attorney. (Ed Hille/Staff)
Brian Grady with his eventual boss Seth Williams (right) in a 2009 forum for candidates vying to become district attorney. (Ed Hille/Staff)Read more

A TOP DEPUTY in the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office lost his job on Friday, weeks after he allegedly lost his temper at a Center City bar.

Brian Grady, brought back to the prosecutor's office by then-newly elected D.A. Seth Williams in January 2010 as the deputy district attorney in charge of the new Special Operations Division, was fired and escorted from the office, sources say.

But the D.A.'s Office and Grady himself deny that.

Responding to questions from the Daily News, the D.A's Office issued a statement shortly after 5 p.m. yesterday describing Grady's departure as a "resignation." The statement said Grady left "to return to the private practice of law."

Reached by the Daily News on his cellphone, Grady said he had not been fired.

Grady, 43, has a reputation for losing his cool.

Grady, who ran unsuccessfully as a Democratic candidate for D.A. in 2009 against Williams, gained notoriety in 1997, when, as an assistant D.A., he punched a defense attorney during a trial.

Last month, he was involved in another incident at McGillin's Olde Ale House, near Juniper and Sansom streets in Center City. Sources say Grady went to the bar with a friend and tried to crash a private party on the second floor.

Grady, who was drinking at the first-floor bar, sneaked into the party with his friend. When asked to leave, he refused, identified himself and began arguing with the manager, Chris Irons, who called the cops, sources said.

After cops arrived, Grady asked for their names and badge numbers, a source said. The cops then called a supervisor. A sergeant arrived and calmed the situation, after which Grady and his friend left.

Officer Tanya Little, a police spokeswoman, yesterday confirmed that an incident happened about 10:25 p.m. on Feb. 13 at McGillin's involving a "disturbance between two gentlemen." She said she could not identify the men because no arrests were made.

Chris Mullins, the owner of McGillin's, said yesterday that Irons no longer works there. Mullins downplayed the incident, which he said never got physical.

"You know the expression, 'What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.' If something happened in here, it stays in here," he said with a smile yesterday afternoon.

After the incident, Irons sent an email to Williams and copies to other top city officials. Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey yesterday confirmed that he had received a copy of the email, which he said "basically complained about the conduct of a couple of district attorneys." (Irons may have thought Grady's friend also worked in the D.A.'s Office, but a source said he does not.)

Ramsey said he got the email sometime around Valentine's Day.

In the 1997 case, Grady, then a 28-year-old assistant D.A., had become "outraged" and started yelling at former Common Pleas Judge Richard B. Klein after a ruling that did not favor Grady. They were in the judge's robing room when Grady moved closer to the judge, at which point defense attorney Joe Stanton, fearing Grady was about to hit the judge, tried to intervene.

Grady then turned his anger toward Stanton and punched him. The D.A.'s Office suspended him without pay for 30 days and barred him from courtrooms for six months. Grady resigned from the D.A.'s Office the next year.

Nearly two years after the incident, the state Supreme Court's disciplinary board ordered a six-month suspension.

Returning to the D.A.'s Office in 2010, after more than a decade in private practice, Grady allegedly still liked to show off his power. Defense attorney Guy Sciolla said yesterday that a client who was arrested in an undercover D.A.'s narcotics operation in 2010 had told him that during a discussion at the D.A.'s Office, Grady allegedly pulled back his suit coat, exposed a firearm and threatened the man.

Joseph McGettigan, who at the time was first assistant D.A., previously told the Daily News the incident never happened. But Sciolla said his client swore it did.