PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A jury on Wednesday found former Philadelphia homicide detective Philip Nordo guilty on all counts of sexual assault and corruption charges.
As the verdict on rape, indecent assault, stalking, and obstruction of justice charges was read in court Wednesday after the two-week trial, Nordo stood in his dark navy blue suit and dropped his head.
Prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, and homicide detectives were among the two dozen witnesses in the trial involving at least three accusers, each connected to police investigations, who said Nordo tried to attack them. Investigators said Nordo used his power and position to control witnesses and informants.
"He was able to operate in the criminal justice system in a way that made it so that he could get away with this without accountability," said prosecutor Brian Collins.
"I think that led to a situation where he could have been believed by default. I think he chose these people for a reason, I think he expected that people would not believe by default."
Two jurors said they believed the accusers' stories, and really hoped they found help to get through their ordeals.
"I think they’re relieved that this is behind them at this point and thankful for the jury service, and thankful for the opportunity to come in and tell what happened to them," said Collins about the accusers.
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"We always thought this case was about credibility," said defense attorney
Michael van der Veen, who said they will immediately appeal. "There are a lot of really important legal issues that are out there in this case, from prior bad acts, evidence, through to jury charges."
Van der Veen maintained that Nordo did nothing wrong.
"He was extremely disappointed, distraught and we are all concerned with his safety at this point," the attorney said.
The trial ran two weeks, and the jury deliberated for at least 10 hours.
Nordo was on house arrest, but after the judge revoked bail, Nordo returned to prison. His sentencing is scheduled for August.
At trial
Prosecutors began the trial with the first accuser, with a focus on the murder investigation of Officer Moses Walker Jr.
Walker was shot and killed on Aug. 18, 2012, by two men, later identified as Chancier McFarland and Rafael Jones.
The accuser said he met Nordo days after Walker was killed. He was questioned by detectives after he was stopped by police for having a similar car seen fleeing the scene. He told investigators his cousin, McFarland, had a similar car.
The accuser later received $20,000 of the city’s homicide reward money and said Nordo wrote up the paperwork claiming his tip led investigators to McFarland and Jones. Several police and mayoral officials signed off on the man getting the $20,000.
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Prosecutors called several detectives who worked the Walker case, including the lead assigned detective. They showed each of them the accuser’s picture, and they all said they had never seen the man before and didn’t recognize his name. Instead, they gave credit to a group of women for helping to identify both suspects, after seeing the pair on widely distributed surveillance video.
Adding to the prosecution’s case, an FBI agent testified that McFarland called him from Alabama and said he knew he was wanted for the murder of Officer Walker, so the agent arranged for Philadelphia homicide detectives to drive south to arrest him.
The accuser told jurors Nordo met him at a Fairmount sports bar and tried to force himself on the man while inside his police car, asking him questions like, “Are you a freak?”
The father of three went on to describe two alleged sexual assaults — both at the Hilton Garden Inn in Center City, just a few blocks from the homicide unit. He said he drove to Ben Franklin High School, parked his car, and walked to the hotel. When he got into the room, he said Nordo’s phone, gun, and badge were on the nightstand. The accuser said Nordo threatened him: “As long as we are like this, you will have your kids,” he told him, and then gave him $200.
As he described the alleged encounters, the man repeatedly said, “I didn’t want to do any of this.”
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The man has a prior drug arrest, which the defense was quick to point out. Nordo’s attorneys tried to weed out the inconsistencies between his current testimony versus his testimony to the grand jury. The man first said he met Nordo once at the hotel, and then said to the jury that it was twice. He also said he met him outside the hotel the first time, but then said to the jury he went up to the third floor, where Nordo answered the door in his underwear.
During the week and a half of testimony, prosecutors called nearly a dozen homicide detectives and commanders.
The second accuser, a former corrections officer, was a witness in a homicide at Broad and Brown streets in 2011. He said he had been drinking and initially gave a statement to detectives but later recanted. He said he met Nordo when the case was being prepared for trial, and Nordo drove to different spots where he thought the man would be, leaving behind his card. He said Nordo once wanted to meet at the Ritz Carlton, but he declined.
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He told jurors Nordo would try to visit him at the prison, and that he was eventually pressured by his supervisor to speak with Nordo. When the two finally met, Nordo told him, “I heard you a freak." He told Nordo he wasn’t gay and that he heard wrong.
The man testified Nordo continued to pursue him, texting and calling and said Nordo would “get upset” if he didn’t respond. He said Nordo made it seem like he was part of the investigation.
The man said the alleged attack happened in March 2016 inside a detective’s car. He said Nordo parked a block or two from his house, and while the two briefly spoke inside, before Nordo pinned him against the door and grabbed his penis. He reiterated to Nordo that he wasn’t gay and had a wife, to which Nordo replied “me too” and told him he wasn’t going to hurt him.
The man told jurors he was able to fight Nordo off, get out of the car and run back to his house, where he paced and cried; he said he “felt the walls were coming down.” He eventually called the employee helpline and checked himself into a mental hospital for 24 hours.
“It was so traumatic,” he said.
But when the defense cross-examined, they read a text exchange in which the man asked Nordo to help him with the test to become a police officer. Nordo replied, “My man, don’t take offense, you’re a weirdo. I offered you help and you ignored me.” About two years later, the man contacted internal affairs. He said his father made him because he “wasn’t acting like himself.”
“It shattered my world,” he told the jury.
The defense pounced back, questioning the man on why he waited so long to report the alleged attack. They questioned why he came forward after the investigation into Nordo was already underway and in the news.
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The third accuser’s story involves more than a dozen legal professionals who testified, including detectives, prosecutors, and criminal defense attorneys.
It began with a shooting and homicide in West Philadelphia. The accuser was one of six defendants charged in the case, but prosecutors said he didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, they said he gave a statement about what happened that prosecutors can never use against him, known as a proffer letter — a standard practice within the district attorney’s office for defendants to give a clearer picture of what happened, sometimes in exchange for a plea deal. Both prosecutors and the man said Nordo was in the room for at least one of those statements.
The accuser said Nordo visited him in prison, first telling him he was in federal law enforcement and that he was in trouble, but that Nordo could help him out. He added that Nordo told him he “heard I was a freak” and grabbed his own crotch and said, “Does this turn you on?”
Handcuffed, the man was brought from his prison cell to the homicide unit for an interview about another killing. While there, he said Nordo kept touching his leg and grabbing at him, asking him if he liked it. In the elevator, he said Nordo tried to kiss him.
The man said he “really felt [his] life was on the line.” He told jurors Nordo said he could get the man $20,000. He called another man who had received the cash to vouch for him that it could be done. Prosecutors believed this to be the first accuser.
This piece of information led defense attorneys to motion twice for a mistrial because they had never heard that piece of evidence. Prosecutors begrudgingly admitted they did not turn over that new information after learning about it the day before. But the judge didn’t think it was significant enough to throw the case out.
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Prosecutors played recorded prison calls between the man and Nordo; each time, the man called Nordo. They would often speak about the man’s case, his family, and how hard it was to be in prison.
At one point the man says, “I can’t wait to see you. I am doing 500 pushups a day.” Nordo replies, “You are going to need that.”
The internal affairs investigator testified later that according to many who were in the prison, it was well known that Nordo said he had a pornography business, and he would tell people he could get them a job.
At one point during the prison calls, the man asks for help and tells Nordo his 11-year-old daughter was raped. Nordo replies, “If you rape a child, you go to f***ing prison.”
Prosecutors said while in prison, Nordo gave the man $500 and $1,000 for his wife to hire a lawyer. At one point in the prison calls, the man says, “I am team Nordo all the way.”
In another call in June 2017, the man told Nordo he was scared because other prisoners called him a rat. The two spoke about moving him to another prison. Soon after, confidential grand jury statements the man made about a shooting were leaked on Instagram. The man said he was terrified and reached out to another prosecutor, Cydney Pope, for help.
When Pope testified, she told the jury, “I have never had grand jury information leaked.” She said she pulled together an emergency relocation, as investigators started to look into the leak. They alleged the Instagram account belonged to the brother of one of the defendants.
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Prosecutors called all the other defense attorneys to testify about whether they leaked the secret grand jury information to their clients. All testified that they would never do such a thing because they would lose their law license and go to jail.
A cell phone expert also testified to pictures of the documents on Nordo’s phone, with a thumb in view. They showed the jury screenshots of a page with a delivery receipt also found on the phone.
Additionally, there were two screenshots of article titles including “How Psychopaths Use Mind Control Techniques” and “Sex and Mind Control: A Powerful Combination.”
The man also told the jury Nordo and his partner texted about Nordo’s manipulation of witnesses and informants. One from Nordo said:“I made them think I was their BFF,” and his partner replied, “I know you were successful in mind-f***ing them. I don’t have a problem with that. Everyone has his/her method.”
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The two also went back and forth about reward money, after Nordo was fired from the police department.
The defense probed at the phone extraction process, and the analyst said there’s no way to tell how pictures got on to the phone — whether they were taken or saved into photos.
The defense called nearly a dozen character witnesses for Nordo, including his wife, daughter, son, relatives, neighbors and friends. They also called a police captain and a retired sergeant, who spoke highly of him and said he had a very good reputation for being a law-abiding, peaceful and truthful person.
The two police officials testified to signing off on the reward money given to the first accuser because they believed the man was the tipster who led to the killers of Officer Walker.
Deliberations
The judge gave the jury charges to consider on Tuesday, after a long Memorial Day weekend break. They came back Wednesday morning and continued to deliberate, going for a total of about 10 hours before giving a verdict.
The jury foreman, who did not want to share his name, said he believed the victims, and he hopes they are able to get help to heal.
“For me, it was looking at each specific charge, looking at all the testimony we heard, expert witnesses, and weighing the facts of the case to decide whether each charge happened: guilty or not guilty,” he said. “I found the testimony of the victims pretty compelling, and a lot of the charges were based on that.”
Sean, another juror, said the group worked collectively — even if they started with differing opinions.
“There was a period where we had to figure out the way everybody viewed everything. Everyone has a different opinion on how they view stuff, so everybody expressed how they felt and what they were feeling on each charge. So we went from there and we put everything out on the table,” he said.
“It was a lot of difference of opinions and everything like that, but we were able to talk, to work everything out and made it work and came up with a good decision everyone agreed with.”
It was hard for him to express how he felt about the whole experience after the fact.
“I don’t know if gratifying is the right word because it felt like we really took the facts into consideration,” he said. “Nobody was just trying to leave, to get out of there because we’ve been there for two or three weeks already. We really felt like we sat down and listened to the facts and really feel like we made a strong decision.”
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