Press

A 2021 Inquirer investigation exposed the practice, by Philadelphia Homicide Detectives Ernest Gilbert and Larry Gerrard, which one judge said led to at least 20 wrongful convictions.

A Philadelphia man has been released from prison after 41 years, the fourth person to be freed in connection with a sprawling “sex for lies” scheme by homicide detectives who arranged sexual liaisons for jailhouse informants in return for false testimony, according to interviews and testimony.

With agreement from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, a judge tossed out Russell Williams’ conviction for the murder of Fred Rainey on a North Philadelphia street in 1982.

In exchange, Williams agreed to plead guilty to third-degree murder so that he could be resentenced to time served.

Common Pleas Court Judge Scott DiClaudio said vacating Williams’ conviction was not an exoneration but an acknowledgment that “in the interest of justice, considering all the facts and circumstances, maybe a different resolution is appropriate.”

A 2021 Inquirer investigation exposed the practice by Detectives Ernest Gilbert and Larry Gerrard, which one judge concluded led to at least 20 wrongful convictions during a violent chapter in the history of the city, then gripped by fear of the Black Mafia.

Former informants told the newspaper and testified in court that they had given false testimony not only because the detectives enticed them with access to guns and drugs, but also because they were threatened with being framed if
they did not cooperate.

Williams, and his family members who filled the courtroom, wept as his life-without-parole sentence was vacated Thursday.

After four decades of fighting, his lawyer Kevin Mincey said, his 67-year-old client wanted to be home with family.

“He still maintains his innocence,” Mincey said. “But he chose his freedom.”

One of Williams’ codefendants, Andre “Shakur” Harvey, was released after a similar plea deal in October.

Harvey’s lawyer, Dan Purtell, said the evidence uncovered in his case so far points to sweeping misconduct, even beyond improper sexual favors afforded the star witness in the case.

Police did not disclose that they had two alternative suspects — one of whom, according to the paperwork, was Jack Hampton, who ran a major gambling operation in the city and was known to be paying off police officers, an arrangement that came to light in a 1980s police-corruption sting called Operation Freddy.

Not long after Rainey’s murder, a man gave police reason to consider Hampton a suspect. The man told police Hampton had accosted him, accusing him of snitching about Hampton’s numbers operation. He said Hampton pointed a gun at him and threatened to shoot, then threw a bullet at him. Hampton underscored the threat, he said, by telling him he had just gunned down a person on 27th Street, where Rainey died.

Police then introduced the bullet from that incident into evidence from the Rainey murder scene in order to support the detectives’ multiple-shooter theory.

And, prosecutors did not disclose witness statements linking the star witness in the Rainey murder case, Charles Atwell, to a different murder — giving him a powerful undisclosed incentive to cooperate with police.

Attempts to contact Atwell were not successful, but his nephew previously told The Inquirer he had trafficked drugs into Police Headquarters for his uncle while accompanying the uncle’s girlfriend to police headquarters — visits the woman testified were sexual in nature.

Purtell said his investigation points to a more widespread pattern of wrongful convictions than has been previously acknowledged.

In addition to Harvey and Williams, another man, Willie Stokes, was exonerated in 2022 of the murder of Leslie Campbell, and later received a $9.62 million civil settlement to compensate for 37 years of wrongful incarceration.

And a fourth man, William Franklin, is out on bail after 44 years in prison. A Philadelphia judge overturned his conviction for the 1976 murder of Joseph Hollis, saying she had found “evidence of governmental interference in suborning perjury pursuant to ‘sex for lies’ to be credible and convincing.”

Common Pleas Court Judge Tracy Brandeis-Roman found that the only evidence linking Franklin to the murder was the “coached and perjured testimony” of the informant who had received undisclosed favors and who
admitted to recruiting a second informant to testify against Franklin’s codefendant, Major Tillery.

The district attorney’s office is appealing that decision, which was based on an affidavit and video statement by the now-deceased jailhouse informant, visitor logs from Police Headquarters, and testimony from the second informant. A
spokesperson for the office did not respond to a request for comment.

Harvey, waiting to see his codefendant’s resentencing, said these cases show how police corruption in the Homicide Unit was normalized in the era of Gerrard and Gilbert, and passed down.

“They taught the Pittses, the Santiagos, the Nordos, the Doves,” he said, referencing former Philadelphia homicide detectives who have all been charged with or convicted of criminal misconduct. “They are the origin of the problem. The system needs to be repaired.”

Willie Stokes (center) puts his arm around his sister Renee Stokes (second from left) as he speaks with the media after being released from prison in Chester.
JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer