PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net
Since he became the district attorney’s star witness, “Billy Doe” has had a remarkable run of good fortune in the criminal courts.
The charges from two previous arrests in 2009 and 2010, both for retail theft, were dropped in 2010 after witnesses in both cases did not show up for court.
On Jan. 7, 2011, a judge dismissed a charge of possession with intent to distribute narcotics, after ruling that police did not have probable cause on June 9, 2010 to stop Billy Doe on the street. When police searched Billy Doe, they found 56 bags of heroin in his shorts. However, the late Judge Adam Beloff ruled the heroin was inadmissible as evidence; the charges were dropped and the case dismissed.
Billy Doe’s most recent arrest, a simple drug possession case on Nov. 10, 2011, has been continued nine times in 18 months. During that time, Billy Doe appeared as a prosecution witness at two trials testifying against the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
But now that the trials are over, and Billy Doe is done as a witness in the criminal courts, that last drug possession charge is about to disappear.
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