WITH EACH NEW SHERIFF, SAME OLD PROBLEMS

William Penn outlines the administration of his recently founded colony of Pennsylvania, including county positions based on English law. The Sheriff’s Office is meant to enforce order in the courts and provide a security force for the county.

The county, city and various townships and boroughs of Philadelphia merge with the Act of Consolidation. This creates a centralized government in the fast-growing city and a standing citywide police force capable of responding to ethnic riots that had overwhelmed township constables and posses drummed up by the sheriff. A string of county elected positions — colloquially known as “row offices” due to their location in a row of offices inside old City Hall — are preserved — including the sheriff’s.

Sheriff Peter Lyle is assailed in the press for usurping the mayor and police commissioner’s authority to secure polling places, and for deploying posse comitatus — a citizen’s force — to intimidate voters. An editorial writer asks, “Have we two heads of police in this city? … Certainly no such thing was ever intended.”

Under Sheriff William R Leeds, the office grows in power, raking in so much in official fees that the city sheriff earns more than the mayor or governor. The Bar Association of Philadelphia accuses sheriff’s deputies of systematically extorting illegal fees from litigants, debtors and those targeted by sheriff’s auction. Two deputies are convicted on related charges. A year later, the courts remove yet another deputy.

Sheriff Leeds is assailed for divvying up legally mandated contracts for advertising forthcoming property sales, to boost politically allied publications and silence critics of Republicans, who dominated city elections for decades following the Civil War. An editorial writer for the Philadelphia Times later describes the ad contracts as “a gigantic corruption and coercion fund.”

Sheriff Enoch Taylor is accused of embezzling sheriff sale proceeds and fixing jury pools to skew the outcome of trials. Following his retirement, an early government-reform group, the Committee of One Hundred, floats “independent” reform sheriff’s candidate and retired Civil War General J. William Hoffman, who pledges to clean up the office and end “jury fixing.” He loses to Republican machine candidate George de Benneville Keim.

During a citywide housing shortage, the Sheriff’s Office comes under federal investigation after the parents of a wounded World War I veteran are evicted from a West Philadelphia rowhouse. That sparks a riot during which a mob of 500 pelts a deputy with stones. A lawyer for the sheriff claims the episode was engineered by tenant-rights groups, but evictions are paused.

The Sheriff’s Office grows as a focal point of Republican political power. Despite rules passed this year, fixing the sheriffs’ salary at $8,000 across the state, Philadelphia Sheriff Thomas “Big Tom” Cunningham manages to donate $50,000 to the U.S. Senate campaign of William Vare — a congressman widely recognized as the chieftain of the city’s Republican machine.

An investigation begins into a “secret” sheriff’s fund outside of city control, while the Pennsylvania state legislature, newly under the control of New Deal Democrats, calls for a state constitutional amendment to complete the consolidation of the city and county governments in Philadelphia. The reform would have paved the way for the abolition of such offices as the sheriff’s, but the city’s political machine united with upstate Republicans to successfully defeat a statewide referendum.

After seizing power from a Republican machine entrenched for nearly a century, Democratic Mayor Richardson Dilworth calls for a new city charter and — once again — the total consolidation of the city and county. The change aims to eliminate “overlapping, antiquated, county departments” that are “stuffed with political workers, free from effective control.” The effort is opposed by Republican Sheriff Austin Meehan, who has become the de facto leader of the GOP machine despite allegations by the city controller that the office had diverted taxpayer money to party writ servers.

Democrats retake control of the Sheriff’s Office with the election of Sheriff William Lennox, who will serve for the next two decades. Lennox, who ran on a pledge to clean up the office, immediately fires Republican patronage hires and bars process servers from soliciting “tips” from the recipients of court orders.

The state legislature finally passes a bipartisan — and watered-down — “City-County Consolidation Act” in 1953, which spares the Sheriff’s Office from abolition but moves it under direct city control.

Reformers try to abolish Philadelphia’s remaining row offices, but face fierce opposition in Harrisburg. Both Republicans and Democrats sink versions of this bill. A final amendment, the result of nearly a decade of lobbying, wins the support of Gov. William Scranton and the state legislature. It grants City Council full power to modify or merge the office with the courts, contingent on voter approval.

But with political control of the Sheriff’s Office firmly in the hands of Democrats, momentum in City Council to exercise these new powers grinds to a halt. A 1964 bill targeting the office, introduced by GOP Councilmember Thomas Foglietta, dies in committee.

Sheriff Charles Murray wins after campaigning on reforming the office as well as expanding its powers by redeploying deputies as law enforcement officers. Allegations that he funneled the sheriff’s notary contracts to a political ally dog him and he is ousted in an upset Democratic primary by “nondescript” challenger Joseph Sullivan, an ally of Mayor Frank Rizzo’s.

Sullivan is unsuccessfully challenged in the general election by Republican Gene Cohen — who calls for dissolving the Sheriff’s Office — and Milton Street, brother of future councilmember and mayor John F. Street. Later, as a state senator, Milton Street unsuccessfully floats yet another bill to merge the department with the court system.

Ralph C. Passio III, the accountant to South Philly power broker and state Sen. Henry J. “Buddy” Cianfrani, ousts Sullivan and expands the purview of the sheriff. He does this by mainly increasing its payroll — hiring relatives and political supporters, including Murray, the former sheriff.

Councilmember John F. Street and City Controller Joseph C. Vignola push to fold the sheriff’s administrative functions into the courts and police departments. (Instead, Vignola would later become a top official in the Sheriff’s Office).

Meanwhile, the FBI investigates allegations that the office has misspent funds to repair its fleet, and withheld money owed to homeowners whose properties were sold at auction. Passio ultimately opts not to seek election.

John D. Green, a former Philadelphia police sergeant and president of the Guardian Civic League, becomes the city’s first Black sheriff. Although he ran on cleaning up the troubled office, he is himself soon implicated in a plot that saw two deputies charged with abusing their roles to help a local businessman evade a creditor. Councilmember Street again threatens legislation to abolish the office — but the deputies are later found not guilty at trial.

In 1990, it is revealed that Green had also funneled money from sheriff’s sales to a politically allied group. Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice James McDermott, a Republican, recommends that the city’s Finance Department seize control of the sheriff’s bank accounts, while a judicial task force recommends abolishing the office, citing duplicative and “wasteful” functions.

Green says his is the victim of a “judicial conspiracy.”

Following an auditor’s discovery of $53 million in unclaimed funds from sheriff’s sales of foreclosed houses, The Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, in 2009, recommends abolishing the sheriff and other row offices. Annual savings: an estimated $3 million. Mayor Michael Nutter, sworn in the prior year, backs a proposal to abolish the city’s remaining row offices, including the sheriff. The Democratic City Committee pushes back and the office is spared.

Green resigns in 2011 as news breaks that a grand jury is looking at missing funds and allegations he steered contracts to a public relations firm responsible for advertising sheriff’s sales. Another City Council bill is introduced to abolish the office, but it finds little support.

Interim Sheriff Barbara Deeley, who was Green’s top deputy, requests that the courts take over sheriff’s sales during this tumultuous period, but instead agrees to a series of court-mandated reforms. Deeley’s staff later finds $56 million in 13 office bank accounts, much of it owed to former property owners who lost their homes at sheriff’s sales. “Today,” Deeley says at a news conference, “the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office takes the next step on the road to restoring the public’s confidence in our real estate division.”

John Kromer, a former director of housing, runs for the office on a platform of abolishing the office but is easily defeated by Democrat Jewell Williams, who runs as a reformer. Eventually Williams, wins the backing of Mayor Nutter — who had previously backed efforts to dissolve the office.

Green is found guilty on charges that he accepted nearly $675,000 in bribes for steering $35 million in contracts to a friend’s public relations firm. Reform candidate Rochelle Bilal throws him a going-to-jail party.

Just five weeks into her first term, in February 2020, Bilal fires her chief financial officer and has him escorted from the building after he raises questions about “slush fund” spending. He and two other staffers later file whistle-blower lawsuits, alleging widespread mismanagement. The city settles for about $1 million.

In 2021, Bilal comes under fire from City Council for awarding a no-bid contract to an online auction firm to conduct sheriff sales. The contract skirts the city’s Law Department, which raises questions about its legality. Since April of that year, due to a dispute over the contract, sales of tax-delinquent properties have remained on hold, costing the city millions in tax revenue and increasing blight.

Deputy sheriffs in 2022 raid a West Oak Lane home on a bench warrant. Inside, they find a bedroom shrine that the defendant’s mother has built in his memory. He’d been shot to death five months earlier. The mother’s federal lawsuit claims that the Sheriff’s Office failed to check court records before knocking.

Bilal’s second-in-command, Undersheriff Tariq El-Shabazz, is fined in 2023 by the city Board of Ethics for supplementing his $200,000 yearly salary by representing criminal defendants, including those prosecuted by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. Says one expert: “I’ve never seen anything like that in a big city.”

Also that year, the Sheriff’s Office — which serves protection-from-abuse orders and confiscates weapons from alleged abusers — has a backlog of thousands of unserved orders, according to state police data. And The Inquirer reports that the office is stonewalling former property owners who are seeking the proceeds they are entitled to from their homes being auctioned.

In February, the first-term “record of accomplishments,” listed on the website for Bilal’s successful reelection campaign, turns out to be a compilation of dozens of fake positive headlines. As the story gains national attention, Bilal says the headlines were generated by ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot.