D.A.'s Office adopts new policy on personal relationships

HANDS OFF the intern!

That's the gist of one of the provisions of a new anti-fraternization policy put into place this month in the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office.

The two-page policy, implemented by Chief Integrity Officer Kathleen Martin, outlines an array of possible relationships that are now forbidden - save a few caveats.

According to a copy of the policy obtained by the Daily News, intimate or sexual relationships are forbidden between a superior and a subordinate, an assistant district attorney and an intern, and job applicants and anyone who has a hand in making hires.

However - yeah, there's a however - preexisting relationships involving any of the above are OK, as long as they are disclosed to higher-ups.

The policy also requires District Attorney's Office employees to disclose any business relationships or intimate relationships they have with other members of local, state, or federal law enforcement.

The policy would apply to cops, prosecutors, judges, and other law enforcement types whose spouses often work in other city agencies, if not the same ones.

Martin, a former Pike County assistant district attorney, was hired by District Attorney Seth Williams in November as part of a staff shake-up that also saw prosecutors Frank Fina, E. Marc Costanzo, and Patrick Blessington demoted.

(All three, you might recall, are tied to the never-ending Porngate email scandal that has plagued Pennsylvania like a stubborn case of the flu for two years.)

Martin said she was reviewing and making changes to a number of internal policies as part of her role as chief of staff, chief integrity officer and general counsel.

The anti-fraternization policy is "typical" for any large governmental agency, she said.

But commonsense rules and regulations have sometimes been lacking in Philadelphia. The policy is new to the D.A.'s Office.

The first few lines take care to explain that relationships between a superior and a subordinate are prohibited if they cause partiality or unfairness, or have an adverse impact on the office's morale.

In 2012, a number of prosecutors anonymously told Philadelphia Magazine that Williams was intimately involved with some of his female staffers, including one woman who had been hired to be a party planner - at a salary of $76,000 a year.

Williams vehemently denied that he was involved with the female staffer. "You got me f--- all the women in the office," he complained to a writer for the magazine.

David Thornburgh, president of the government watchdog group Committee of Seventy, called the policy a "fundamentally good idea," especially in an age when social media have made so many people's private lives more public.

"Who are you friends with on Facebook - your professional colleagues or your high school buddies?" he asked. "There's more opportunity for those lines to cross, which is all the more reason that when conducting public business, we're clear about who you're doing business with, who you're making decisions about, and why."

It has taken some time for this idea to catch on in Philadelphia.

In 2008, then-Mayor Michael Nutter and then-City Council President Anna C. Verna created a Task Force on Ethics and Campaign Finance Reform in a bid to clean up the city's long-standing reputation for fostering a culture of corruption.

A year later, the task force noted in a report that the city had no policy barring its employees from "hiring, promoting, or recommending the hiring or promotion" of family members or love interests.

The task force recommended that the city adopt a "strict" antinepotism and anti-fraternization policy, pointing out that other governments and corporations had long ago done so.

In 2011, Nutter signed an antinepotism executive order that forbade city employees from hiring, supervising, or promoting members of their immediate families. The Philadelphia Police Department operates under that order, a spokeswoman said.

Last winter, the Fire Department was embroiled in a sex scandal that led to seven members of the department being disciplined.

Leaders of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 22 criticized the disciplinary action, saying the department lacked an anti-fraternization policy.

gambacd@phillynews.com

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@dgambacorta