PHILADELPHIA _ Federal authorities accused Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams on Tuesday of accepting travel to the Dominican Republic, a custom sofa and other gifts in exchange for offers to fix cases and ease law enforcement troubles for a friend and business owner.
Williams faces more than 21 counts, including wire fraud, honest services fraud and bribery-related charges.
In an indictment unsealed Tuesday, prosecutors paint a portrait of an avaricious elected official willing to cross ethical and legal lines to help those willing to help him in return.
In one February 2012 text message exchange quoted in the filing, Williams allegedly agreed to aid a friend of Mohammed N. Ali, a Philadelphia business owner, by offering to see about shortening the prison sentence the man faced as part of a plea deal with the district attorney's office.
Within days, Ali offered to send Williams on a $3,000 trip to the Dominican Republic resort of Punta Cana, prosecutors said
"I am merely a thankful beggar and don't want to overstep my bounds," Williams allegedly wrote in one text message quoted in the indictment. "But we will gladly go."
Williams also helped Ali on several other occasions, federal investigators said.
"In the future always give me at least a week to help a friend," the district attorney allegedly wrote to Ali in August 2012. "I have no problem looking into anything. ... I can't promise I will drastically change anything once it has gotten to the trial stage but I can always look into it."
The U.S. attorney's office for New Jersey, which has been handling the Williams investigation, scheduled a news conference in Philadelphia to announce the charges.
Williams, who is expected to make his first appearance in federal court Wednesday, could not immediately be reached for comment. A district attorney's office spokesman said that he was not in his office Tuesday and was spending time with his family at home.
But officials in both political and legal circles were calling for Williams' resignation.
Mayor Jim Kenney called the Williams' alleged actions "deeply shameful" and a "flagrant violation of the law."
"At a time when our citizens' trust in government is at an all-time low, it is disheartening to see yet another elected official give the public a reason not to trust us," the mayor said in a statement. "That this comes at the heard of our justice system is even more troubling. We must all greatly raise the bar for our behavior and show the citizens of Philadelphia that we are capable of carrying out our most basic responsibilities as elected officials, upholding the law."
Deborah R. Gross, chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association called for Williams to step aside immediately.
"The charges against him cast a shadow on the district attorney's office, our legal community and the entire city of Philadelphia. It truly is an embarrassment," she said.
The indictment comes a month after Williams announced that he would not seek a third term as Philadelphia's top prosecutor.
In announcing his decision to forgo a re-election bid, Williams, 50, apologized for bringing "embarrassment and shame" to the district attorney's office due to his own ethical lapses.
The charges cap a year-and-a-half of controversy for the prosecutor, who began his term in 2010 with promises of reform. But his pledge to bring sweeping change to the city's criminal justice system has been overshadowed in recent months by his own scandals and the probe into his personal and political spending.
Since at least summer 2015, FBI and IRS agents have been investigating Williams' finances. A federal grand jury in August subpoenaed records from his political campaign fund as investigators probed whether the prosecutor misspent funds on personal expenses. Also receiving a subpoena for financial records was the Second Chance Foundation, a nonprofit Williams founded to help at-risk children families.
In January, Williams was fined $62,000 by the Philadelphia Board of Ethics for failing to report more than $175,000 in gifts he had accepted. The fine, the largest in the board's 10-year history, was over gifts that included a new roof, luxury vacations, Eagles sidelines passes, and the use of a defense attorney's home in Florida.
Williams has said his financial issues stemmed from his 2011 divorce and private school tuition for his daughters. He has previously said that he did not take official action in exchange for gifts, but has acknowledged lapses in judgment, and expressed regret for how the attention on his finances impacted his office's work.
"I have made regrettable mistakes in my personal life and personal financial life that cast an unnecessary shadow over the district attorney's office," Williams said in announcing his decision not to seek re-election.
He vowed then to serve out the remainder of his second four-year term, saying, "I will spend the balance of my term trying to regain (the public's) trust, the trust that I have lost, and will continue to make this office better than it was when I arrived."
Seven Democrats and one Republican filed nomination petitions for a place on the May 16 primary election ballot, seeking to succeed Williams as district attorney.
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