--- alias: - Office of the District Attorney of Philadelphia - Philadelphia DA's office - DAO category: Law Enforcement & Legal created: 2026-09-23 location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania relations: - end: 1966 fn: 4 reverse: true role: district attorney start: 1962 type: head_of with: '[[James C. Crumlish Jr.]]' - end: 2017 fn: 6 reverse: true role: district attorney type: head_of with: '[[R. Seth Williams]]' - fn: 1 reverse: true role: district attorney start: 2018 type: head_of with: '[[Larry Krasner]]' - fn: 3 reverse: true role: assistant district attorney type: employed_by with: '[[Alyssa Amoroso]]' - end: 2026-08-06 fn: 2 start: 2025 type: prosecuted with: '[[Eugene Horsch]]' summary: Prosecutor for the city and county of Philadelphia, led since 2018 by Larry Krasner, which charged and in August 2026 withdrew state gun and drug counts against Eugene Horsch. tags: - Organization - LawEnforcement - Prosecution - Philadelphia - OlneyHouseInvestigation - RCHorsch updated: 2026-09-23 --- The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office is the prosecutor for the city and county of Philadelphia. It has been led since 2018 by Larry Krasner. In 2025 it prosecuted [Eugene Horsch](/people/eugene-horsch/) on drug counts, and after his arrest in June 2026 it charged him with illegal gun and drug possession; on August 6, 2026, it withdrew those charges in favor of the federal prosecution.[^1][^2][^3] ### District Attorneys James C. Crumlish Jr. was district attorney from 1962 to 1966 and later sat as a judge of the Commonwealth Court until his death in 1992.[^4] On January 19, 2012, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in an opinion by Chief Justice Ronald Castille, held that the Philadelphia costs-of-prosecution statute did not permit the office to recover the salaries of its assistant district attorneys and county detectives from [Gerald Garzone](/people/gerald-garzone/) and [Louis Garzone](/people/louis-garzone/), the funeral directors it had prosecuted in the body-parts case of 2008.[^5] On March 21, 2017, a federal grand jury returned a 23-count indictment charging District Attorney Rufus Seth Williams with bribery, extortion, and honest services wire fraud "in connection with tens of thousands of dollars' worth of concealed bribes that he received from two business owners in exchange for his agreement to perform official acts," and with defrauding a nursing home and family friends of money meant for a relative's care. The case was brought by the United States Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey with the [FBI](/organizations/federal-bureau-of-investigation/)'s Philadelphia Division, [IRS](/organizations/internal-revenue-service/) Criminal Investigation, and Homeland Security Investigations.[^6] Krasner first ran for district attorney in 2017. On November 4, 2025, he won a third term against the Republican nominee, Patrick Dugan, a former judge of the Philadelphia Municipal Court.[^1] ### The Horsch Prosecutions [R.C. Horsch](/people/rc-horsch/) said that staff of the office attended the 1973 premiere of his film [The Erotic Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig](/misc/the-erotic-memoirs-of-a-male-chauvinist-pig/) at the 1812 Theater on Chestnut Street.[^7] In March 2009 the office, through Assistant District Attorney [Jill Fertel](/people/jill-fertel/), prosecuted him for approaching a nine-year-old girl in Kensington.[^8] Firefighters answered a small fire on the second floor of the house at 417 West Chew Avenue on May 18, 2025. A fire marshal and a police patrolman found a marijuana grow, a BCI Defense rifle of AR-15 pattern modified to fire automatically, a 12-gauge Stevens Model 67 shotgun with a sawed-off barrel, a 9mm Girsan MC28 pistol, and more than a hundred rounds of ammunition; the serial numbers had been destroyed on all three guns. According to a spokesperson for Krasner, the defense lawyer [Jerome Brown](/people/jerome-brown/) told the court that the weapons had belonged to Eugene Horsch's father, who had died three days before the raid, and that Eugene Horsch had planned to dispose of them properly. He pleaded guilty to manufacturing drugs, prosecutors withdrew the gun charges, and he received three years of probation.[^2] After his arrest near Independence Hall on June 19, 2026, the office charged him with illegal gun and drug possession. On the morning of August 6, 2026, Assistant District Attorney Alyssa Amoroso withdrew the charges, telling a city judge that the United States Attorney's Office would handle the case. Neither Horsch nor Brown attended the hearing.[^3] Amoroso, a 2017 graduate of the Villanova University law school, had interned in the office's Municipal Court Unit in 2016.[^9] ### Referral of Krasner On September 15, 2026, in the federal habeas proceeding over Dennis Johnson's 2009 conviction for second-degree murder, Judge Paul S. Diamond of the [United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania](/organizations/united-states-district-court-for-the-eastern-district-of-pennsylvania/) wrote: "I have thus reluctantly concluded that Philadelphia's highest law enforcement official and one of his top assistants may have violated the law." He referred "the DAO, Mr. Krasner, and Stiegler to this District's [United States](/places/united-states/) Attorney's Office for investigation and other appropriate action," writing that a possible threat by Krasner "could amount to obstruction of justice," that efforts to mislead the court "might amount to conspiracy," and that the supervisor Matthew Stiegler "may have committed perjury while on the stand." Krasner said: "I respectfully and vigorously disagree," and "I look forward to appealing to the higher court as soon as the law allows."[^10] [^1]: Orso, Anna, Ellie Rushing, and Jesse Bunch. "Larry Krasner reelected as Philadelphia District Attorney," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* November 4, 2025. https://www.inquirer.com/politics/philadelphia/district-attorney-election-results-winner-20251104.html [^2]: Marin, Max, Ryan W. Briggs, Ellie Rushing, and Barbara Laker. "Police searched Olney home last summer, but drugs, not missing women, were the focus," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* July 1, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/eugene-raymond-horsch-olney-home-search-guns-drugs-20260701.html [^3]: Rushing, Ellie. "Feds will take over gun case of Olney man at center of missing women investigation, as Philly DA withdraws charges," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* August 6, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/crime/eugene-horsch-federal-charges-olney-missing-women-20260806.html [^4]: "James Crumlish," Ballotpedia; "James C. Crumlish," Find a Grave memorial 117845657 (1920 to 1992). https://ballotpedia.org/James_Crumlish ; https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/117845657/james-c_-crumlish [^5]: Commonwealth v. Garzone, 34 A.3d 67, 613 Pa. 481 (Pa. 2012), opinion of Castille, C.J., decided January 19, 2012. https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=13924150246787701071 [^6]: United States Attorney's Office, District of New Jersey, "Philadelphia District Attorney Rufus Seth Williams Indicted On Bribery And Extortion Charges," press release, March 21, 2017, archived. http://web.archive.org/web/20260524023339/https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/philadelphia-district-attorney-rufus-seth-williams-indicted-bribery-and-extortion-charges [^7]: West, Ashley. "Unknowing Ray Horsch, Episode 2: Performance," *The Rialto Report,* Podcast 172, September 20, 2026, audio, republishing interviews recorded in 2013. https://www.therialtoreport.com/2026/09/20/ray-horsch-3/ [^8]: Rushing, Ellie, Barbara Laker, Ryan W. Briggs, and Max Marin. "Raymond Horsch was convicted of luring a 9-year-old girl to his car in 2009. Now those court records could be destroyed." *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* September 22, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/crime/raymond-horsch-child-luring-kensington-records-expunged-20260922.html [^9]: "Profiles in Justice: ADA Alyssa Amoroso," Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, *The Justice Wire* (Medium), about 2021. https://medium.com/philadelphia-justice/profiles-in-justice-ada-alyssa-amoroso-64b95bd178bb [^10]: Palmer, Chris. "A federal judge said he believes DA Larry Krasner may have broken the law, and he referred the case to the U.S. Attorney's Office," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* September 15, 2026, updated September 16, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/crime/paul-diamond-judge-larry-krasner-crimes-prosecution-20260915.html