Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

FOP adds to an already bad week for Seth Williams

The Fraternal Order of Police lodge in Philadelphia, long in a war of words with District Attorney Seth Williams, is putting its concerns down on paper and up in the sky.

Billboard located on Aramingo Ave, near I-95, in Philadelphia, January 18, 2017.
Billboard located on Aramingo Ave, near I-95, in Philadelphia, January 18, 2017.Read moreJESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer

The Fraternal Order of Police lodge in Philadelphia, long in a war of words with District Attorney Seth Williams, is putting its concerns down on paper and up in the sky.

"Help Wanted. New Philadelphia District Attorney. Please contact FOP Lodge 5," reads a billboard recently posted along I-95 at Aramingo Avenue.

Lodge president John McNesby said his union would post "at least a half a dozen" billboards around the city before the May 16 Democratic primary, and plans to distribute similar lawn signs to its 14,500 active and retired members and any businesses or city residents who want them.

"I'll pump them out," McNesby said of the lawn signs. "When we run dry, we'll get more."

McNesby said the union's board of directors voted overwhelmingly last week to spend an "unlimited amount of resources to get our message out." The lone vote against that came from a director who was reluctant to spend the money, he said.

Williams, who is seeking a third term, declined to comment about the billboard, according to a campaign spokesman.

Williams agreed in a settlement with the Philadelphia Board of Ethics on Monday to pay a $62,000 fine - a record for the 10-year-old agency - for failing to properly disclose $175,716 in gifts from 2010 to 2015.

"If it would have been any other city employee, they would have been fired," McNesby said.

Williams first amended his statements of financial interests in August to declare $160,050 in gifts. Monday's agreement with the Board of Ethics included $15,666 in previously unreported gifts.

Among the 89 gifts, the Board of Ethics said, were "20 gifts from individuals who had a financial interest that the district attorney was able to substantially affect through official action at the time they gave the gifts." That included defense attorneys, and employees and contractors for his office.

Williams, in a statement Monday, said he accepted "full responsibility for my failure to do everything that was required of me as a public official."

After the settlement was announced, Joe Khan, one of Williams' four Democratic challengers, on Monday called on Williams to resign.

Williams also faces Rich Negrin, a former city managing director; Teresa Carr Deni, a former Municipal Court judge; and real estate investor Michael Untermeyer, a former assistant district attorney, in the primary.

Williams has also been dogged by a joint FBI and IRS investigation, working with a federal grand jury, to examine his personal and political finances.

McNesby said the FOP expects to endorse a candidate in the primary.

"We don't seek out a candidate," he said. "They come to us."

The billboards will be converted to support the endorsed candidate at some point, McNesby said.

brennac@phillynews.com

215-854-5973

@ByChrisBrennan