A man who fired shots during a gun battle in West Philadelphia that left three men dead and wounded several others two years ago was convicted of murder this week.
Tahir Shoatz, 30, was found guilty of third-degree murder in the death of Sekayi Robinson, 23, as well as attempted murder, aggravated assault, simple assault, four counts of reckless endangerment, and three firearms offenses, following a bench trial in Common Pleas Court.
But Judge Roxanne Covington on Thursday acquitted Shoatz of murder in the deaths of brothers Akil Jones, 33, and Rashie Jones, 29, concluding that he did not fire the shots that killed them on July 21, 2024.
That night, gunfire shattered a block party on the 1200 block of North Alden Street, where more than 100 people had gathered, prosecutors said. In addition to the three killings, six people were injured by bullets — including Shoatz, who was shot in the abdomen, shoulder, and knee, and his co-defendant in the case, Amir Jones, who was struck by two bullets on his left side.
Covington also acquitted Shoatz of 15 other charges, including attempted murder, aggravated assault, simple assault, and other offenses.
The mass shooting stemmed from an argument between Akil Jones and Shoatz that turned physical when Shoatz reached for a handgun at his waistband, Assistant District Attorney Cydney Pope said during the trial. Amir Jones — who is the brother of Akil and Rashie Jones — intervened in the fray to help his brother, Pope said, seconds before the first shot rang out.
Prosecutors initially charged Jones with three counts of murder and four counts of aggravated assault, as well as multiple counts of reckless endangerment and firearms offenses. But they dismissed the murder and aggravated assault charges against him at the start of the trial.
And on Thursday, Covington acquitted Jones of the remaining charges against him.
The prosecution’s case relied heavily on surveillance and police body-worn camera footage that captured the shooting and its aftermath. Pope said the footage showed multiple shooters, including Shoatz, Amir Jones, Robinson, and another man. Police recovered 41 bullet casings and fragments from the scene, she said, and determined Rashie Jones had also fired a gun.
After watching the footage several times, the judge said “it is clear” that the other man — whom prosecutors said has not been identified by police — killed Akil Jones. But it was unclear who shot Rashie Jones, she said, because “that is never seen on video.”
Shoatz’s attorney, Robert Gamburg, contended that Shoatz had been disarmed by Amir Jones during the brawl, then shot multiple times. “He was a victim in this case,” Gamburg said. “He has always been a victim.”
Think you know your news? There’s only one way to find out. Welcome back to our weekly News Quiz — a quick way to see if your reading habits are sinking in and to put your local news knowledge to the test.
Question 1 of 10
A veteran Philly teacher and activist faced backlash this week after revealing that she had lied about her:
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
The teacher activists who organized alongside Hannah Gann want accountability on behalf of the vulnerable students who believed the Philadelphia School District teacher was someone she was not. Gann claimed to be Black and Palestinian. She was active in the fight to defend Keziah Ridgeway, another Philadelphia teacher disciplined for her social media posts. But Gann has admitted she is a white, Jewish woman and the relative of Israeli settlers.
Question 2 of 10
The Rocky statue has moved again. It’s been installed in what’s being billed as its permanent space. Where is that?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
The city’s famed statue was installed atop the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s iconic steps Wednesday. The statue, which Sylvester Stallone commissioned for Rocky III, has long been a controversial piece of public art in the city. It arrived in town in 1981, and has since been moved about a half dozen times — including previous stints at the top of the steps.
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Question 3 of 10
Philly-based discount retailer Five Below is being sued for allegedly knowingly selling knock-offs of this company’s main product:
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
Crocs’ attorneys say Five Below kept selling foam clog look-alikes and accessories even after being notified in March of trademark, patent, and intellectual property infringement. The allegations were detailed in a lawsuit filed last week by Crocs and its subsidiary, Jibbitz Charms, in federal court in Colorado, where Crocs is based. The plaintiffs take issue with Five Below’s “Juniors Charm Clog,” which look like trademarked Crocs, and the shoe’s accompanying charms, which resemble the patented Jibbitz ones that can be affixed to Crocs.
Question 4 of 10
Which Philly neighborhood housed the first Ronald McDonald House?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
On Tuesday, Oct. 15, 1974, officials hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the world’s first Ronald McDonald House at 4032 Spruce St. in West Philadelphia. What started as a collaboration by Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the Eagles, and McDonald's is now a network of 400 houses in 62 countries, including three in the Philadelphia region.
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Question 5 of 10
Michelle Zauner has announced her second memoir. Thank You For Your Suffering follows the Crying in H Mart author and Philly bandleader on a journey to South Korea. What band is Zauner the frontwoman of?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
Thank You For Suffering chronicles the year that Zauner — who was born in Eugene, Ore., and graduated from Bryn Mawr College, before starting her Philly bands Little Big League and Japanese Breakfast — spent living in South Korea, learning the language, and connecting more deeply with her mother’s family.
Question 6 of 10
Little Bean, the West Philly coffee shop owned by the couple behind Cleo Bagels, has a new housemade syrup flavor just in time for fall. What is it?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
Little Bean’s new pumpernickel syrup is available in any coffee drink, but co-owner Alex Malamy says it’s best showcased in the form of a pumpernickel cortado. It’s savory and cozy, with notes of caraway seed and cocoa powder.
Question 7 of 10
This artist’s Saturday performance at Lincoln Financial Field drew ire and protests ahead of the show after the firing of opening act Macklemore because of the rapper’s pro-Palestinian comments. Their Philly concert marked the first of the tour since Macklemore’s removal, leading to other opening acts and musicians also quitting. Who was the headlining act?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
At his first concert since controversy roiled his North American tour, Ed Sheeran said he was“deeply worried” by venues influencing performances after the firing of Macklemore. Sheeran said the tour’s promoter was responsible for the firing, not him. Critics say Sheeran should’ve held firm on Macklemore’s inclusion. “I’ve had to take and make difficult decisions, and I am making mistakes, and I am so, so sorry,” Sheeran told the crowd Saturday night at Lincoln Financial Field.
Question 8 of 10
Elkins Park's Lynwood Hall is opening its doors to the public, honoring the characters of what HBO show?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
The historic Elkins Park mansion is opening to the public for the first time in 84 years. The 100,000-square-foot home will host “Fleurs de Villes: The Gilded Age,” a 10-day floral exhibition honoring the history of the period and the characters of the hit HBO series, The Gilded Age.
Question 9 of 10
Zach Ertz is rejoining the Eagles after Dallas Goedert’s injury. When was the last time he played for the Birds?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
Ertz, a 2013 second-round pick by the Eagles, was last with the team in 2021. The Eagles traded him that season to the Arizona Cardinals for cornerback Tay Gowan and a 2022 fifth-round draft pick. He spent parts of three seasons in Arizona before joining Washington in free agency in 2024. Ertz is expected to be ready to play Monday night in Chicago — and could outright be signed to the open Eagles spot — just over nine months removed from the gruesome knee injury that ended his 2025 season.
Question 10 of 10
What Shore icon is showing signs of collapse?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
The wall under the decking of Wonderland Pier is caving in and showing signs of collapse, say owner Eustace Mita and Ocean City inspectors. Ocean City has sent Mita a “Notice of Unsafe Structure,” along with a request for an engineer’s report and a plan of corrective action, city spokesperson Doug Bergen said.
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The pope who came in peace arrived in a Philadelphia seemingly under occupation.
For the roughly 1 million people who descended upon Philly to try to catch a glimpse of Pope Francis over his two-day visit in September 2015,there was an unprecedented level of security. Center City was put under 24-7 military supervision by armed personnel in vehicles stationed at busy intersections.
Security had not been as strict in 1979. When Pope John Paul II stepped off “Shepherd One” to kick off his not-quite 24-hour visit, he was met by a genuflecting Mayor Frank Rizzo before passing and waving to a mass of Catholics lined up on Broad Street.
Francis’ six-day tour covered three cities — including New York and Washington — as part of the first-ever World Meeting of Families, touted as the largest global gathering of Catholic families held on U.S. soil.
On his first night in town, in an address at Independence Hall, Francis emphasized the right to religious freedom, touched on immigration and the plight of refugees, and called for “peace, tolerance, and respect for the dignity and rights of others,” without specifically addressing same-sex marriage or abortion rights.
Despite the increased security, on night two, Francis rode in his popemobile up and down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, to City Hall and back, before moving on to the night’s primary venue.
In an address on the Parkway, Francis preached to a throng of believers about the importance of family and again pleaded for more tolerance, faith, and love.
“Love is something we learn,” he said. “Love is something we live.”
Much like John Paul II’s visit, supporters filled Logan Square, streaming in from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, City Hall, and beyond. But despite being a sizable crowd, it was not as large as first anticipated because of the security restrictions.
To get in and out that night, visitors faced the aptly named papal box, which encased Center City ina safety cocoon. Vehicle travel was a nonstarter, with streets cut off by cement dividers, and pedestrians could enter the cocoon only after walking through serious-looking metal detectors.
Despite the restrictions, an overwhelming sense of joy permeated the city, as more than a million people united in celebration of a 78-year-old man and his relentless pursuit of a better world.
“It feels like a big embrace,” Katherine Brennan of Rhode Island told The Inquirer. “We feel like everybody here is family. This is a microcosm of what the world could be if we all embraced each other the way he does.”
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office has been roiled by controversy in recent months after a federal judge said Krasner and one of his supervisors may have committed crimes while overseeing a post-conviction case.
It could be months — or longer — before it’s clear if federal prosecutors agree that Krasner should face charges including conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
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But the events that led to that striking conclusion from U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond were laid out in testimony that unfolded in his courtroom this summer, as well as in a 40-page memorandum he filed in the case in September.
Krasner has disputed Diamond’s findings, and said he plans to file an appeal of the judge’s ruling, which also barred Krasner and one of his supervisors, Matthew Stiegler, from participating in the underlying case.
Here’s a recap of how the situation evolved from a routine legal matter into a contentious saga that could lead to consequences for the city’s top prosecutor.
In 2009, Dennis Johnson was convicted of second-degree murder after a jury found that he fatally shot Kenyatta Smith two years earlier during a robbery outside a North Philadelphia convenience store.
The case was largely built on the testimony of eyewitnesses, whose credibility Johnson sought to dispute at trial. Even after being sentenced to life in prison, Johnson maintained he did not commit the crime.
He filed several unsuccessful appeals in Pennsylvania courts. Then, in 2015, he filed a petition seeking to overturn his conviction in federal court. The case landed in front of Diamond.
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2022
The case is assigned to Jaclyn Mason
Prosecutors opposed Johnson’s petition for years. But in 2022, they changed course when it was assigned to a new assistant district attorney: Jaclyn Mason.
Mason had only joined Krasner’s office a few months earlier, and Johnson’s case was her first in her new role in the federal litigation unit. Although she had extensive experience as a lawyer — working primarily on patent and trademark cases — she’d never before worked as a criminal litigator, and she said she received almost no training in the DA’s office before being asked to handle cases.
Her boss was Stiegler, who had a controversial history working for Krasner. Over the course of a few years, he’d joined and left the office twice. And in one of those stints, nearly everyone under his supervision requested a transfer. One prosecutor later told Diamond that Stiegler did “not have the best reputation” among his colleagues.
When it came time to decide how to handle Johnson’s petition, Mason said, Stiegler had already made up his mind. Although he’d done nothing to independently review Johnson’s claims, Mason said, Stiegler had conferred with Johnson’s attorneys — including the Pennsylvania Innocence Project and federal defenders — and decided his conviction should be reversed.
“Matt told me: ‘If it’s good enough for the Innocence Project, it’s good enough for me,’” Mason said later. “The decision to concede had been made, and then I was his pawn.”
Mason also acknowledged that she reviewed almost nothing before submitting and signing off on her brief recommending Johnson’s conviction be thrown out. But at that point, she said, she believed she had to follow her boss’ orders.
“I didn’t know anything enough to push back,” she later testified. “I’d been at the office for four months — I’d never done this kind of work before.”
Once Mason did actually draft the brief, she said, Stiegler offered edits, and all of them made it into the final document. Another supervisor, Nancy Winkelman, the onetime head of the Law Division, also made suggestions that were included in the final brief, Mason said.
Mason’s name, however, was the only one that ended up on the document.
May 2026
Discovery of errors
A federal magistrate, Judge Lynne A. Sitarski, eventually agreed that Johnson’s conviction should be overturned, based in part on the findings in Mason’s brief.
But Sitarski’s decision was not binding — the final call would fall to Diamond. And in May, rather than accepting Mason’s conclusions, he decided to schedule an evidentiary hearing to hear testimony and weigh the pieces of evidence before issuing a ruling.
As the hearing approached, Mason reached out to a group of supervisors in the law division to prepare: Katherine Ernst, Steven Wildberger, David Napiorski, and Peter Andrews. And Ernst said when she reviewed Mason’s brief, she discovered it contained “significant errors” — issues that, in her view, contradicted the notion that Johnson’s conviction should be overturned.
Asking a judge to do so — and admitting a document was filled with mistakes — is a significant step for a lawyer to take.
But Ernst said the office had no choice: Lawyers are duty-bound to be honest with courts, and there was no ethical way to proceed with a document containing such errors.
The supervisors first decided to break the news to Mason. And in a meeting, they said, they asked her to sign on to the withdrawal with them.
But Mason declined. She told the supervisors the situation was Stiegler’s fault — and that his downfall was “a long time coming.” The supervisors later said she didn’t offer more specifics, and that at that point, none of them knew the extent of Stiegler’s role in the brief’s preparation.
Mason, however, felt the supervisors were setting her up to take the fall. She decided to resign, and said in her resignation letter that Stiegler had “used me to further his personal agenda” — and that he should be forced to “submit and swear in an affidavit that he erred and that he was responsible for what was filed in this case.”
She said she was prepared to stay until the end of June to wrap up any outstanding obligations, but that Krasner’s chief of staff, Jennifer Lin, told her that wouldn’t be necessary. Mason’s email was cut off, she said, and her badge granting her access to the office was disabled.
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Early June 2026
Mason resigns, and Stiegler tries to assign blame to her
After Mason resigned, her former supervisors began drafting the motion to withdraw her brief.
Stiegler, meanwhile, took on a different assignment: Seeking to blame Mason for the errors.
According to Ernst, in the days after Mason quit, Stiegler told colleagues she must have “purposefully inserted false facts” into her brief, and that it was “100% her fault and 0% his fault.”
And he came up with a plan to try to support that narrative, proposing that her colleagues review all of her work to find other cases with errors, so that the office could file a brief with Diamond casting Mason as “an ADA who went rogue, basically.”
The supervisors said no. Beyond viewing the proposal as inappropriate, Ernst said, she also pointed out to Stiegler that it would not help his reputation to show the court that one of his employees made consistent mistakes.
But Stiegler persisted — and even proposed the idea to Krasner.
And during a meeting on June 5, during which the supervisors were seeking Krasner’s approval on the motion to withdraw Mason’s brief, the DA repeated Stiegler’s proposal, describing it as “a really good idea.”
The supervisors again said no. Wildberger told Diamond he found the notion “tremendously inappropriate.”
Diamond, in his September memorandum, said it was more serious than that.
“In urging that others lie to me,” he wrote, “Stiegler might be liable for obstruction of justice.”
He also said Stiegler’s testimony about the episode contained enough omissions and “falsehoods” that it “may well amount to perjury.”
And he said Krasner’s attempt to work with Stiegler and urge others to present a false narrative to Diamond “might amount to criminal conspiracy.”
In the same June 5 meeting, meanwhile, Krasner did approve the supervisors’ motion to withdraw Mason’s brief, which they filed that afternoon.
But another dispute emerged — one that would linger well beyond that meeting.
Late June 2026
A potential conflict of interest
In Ernst’s view, the internal turmoil over the case — particularly the attempts to assign blame about what happened — had compromised the office’s ability to handle Johnson’s petition appropriately.
The internal discussions had become consumed by the office’s inner-workings, Ernst said, and not the merits of Johnson’s appeal, creating, in her view, a conflict of interest.
As a result, Ernst said, she told Krasner the case should be referred to the state attorney general’s office, the typical process if the DA’s Office has a conflict.
But Krasner disagreed.
In the supervisors’ telling, Krasner was consistently and sometimes angrily opposed to sending the case to state prosecutors. During meetings over the next several weeks, the supervisors said, Krasner repeatedly expressed disdain for the people who worked there, describing them as “Nazis” and saying he “hated” them.
The views are not new; Krasner, during his first week in office in 2018, fired 31 prosecutors, some of whom went on to join the attorney general’s office. And in 2019, Krasner said some people in his office had jokingly come to describe the AG’s Office as “Paraguay,” a South American country where Nazis took refuge after World War II.
Beyond the war criminal reference, however, the supervisors said Krasner expressed other reasons for opposing the referral.
One was that he wanted his staff to “protect the office,” the supervisors said. And according to Ernst, Krasner said: “We need somebody in the room so that [we] can control the proceedings.”
Ernst said she pushed back, telling Krasner: “A person can’t both protect the office and competently handle this case.”
But Krasner was insistent, they said. And he told them he was consulting with legal ethics experts — whom he did not name — to ensure there was no issue with keeping the case in-house.
Over the next several weeks, the supervisors said, they began putting their thoughts in writing. That practice led to additional disputes on June 24.
That day, according to Napiorski, he emailed Krasner a draft memorandum outlining the various issues the supervisors believed created a conflict. Napiorski said he emailed it to Krasner’s personal and work e-mail addresses because Krasner rarely responds to messages from his government account.
Two hours later, the supervisors said, an email response came from Lin, Krasner’s chief of staff. But the message opened by saying that Krasner had written it, and that he took issue with many of the assertions in the group’s memo.
In a meeting that afternoon, the supervisors said, Krasner also said he was angry that the supervisors had sent the memo by email because doing so created a record that could be discoverable in potential litigation.
The next day, Napiorski said, he spoke with his own ethics expert, who agreed that the case should be referred to another office. As a result, he said, he and Wildberger brought Krasner another new piece of writing: A draft of a letter that would refer the case to state prosecutors.
Krasner was “apoplectic,” Wildberger said. And he went on to threaten “consequences” for anyone who told Diamond about the conflict discussions — a reference that both Wildberger and Napiorski took to mean losing their jobs.
The two men called Ernst, who said the threat made it clear: They needed to recuse themselves from the case.
Ernst and Wildberger filed a memo before Diamond withdrawing their appearances that day. Napiorski and Andrews followed suit a day later.
Diamond, meanwhile, said in his September memo that Krasner’s threat to fire people who were seeking to tell the truth in court “could amount to obstruction of justice.”
July 2026
Examining attorney conduct
On July 17, Diamond held an evidentiary hearing in the case — which he decided to limit to issues concerning attorney conduct, rather than the merits of Johnson’s petition. He said he would address that later.
Mason took the stand first, describing what she viewed as an attempt to scapegoat her on Stiegler’s behalf. She also accused the law division supervisors of urging her to lie to Diamond — something the supervisors would later deny.
Stiegler also testified, saying he believed Mason had — and should have — conducted a full investigation into Johnson’s claims before filing her brief.
Behind the scenes, meanwhile, turmoil was continuing in the office.
On July 20, Wildberger stepped down from his supervisory role in the law division, later saying he did so because he had “lost faith in the administration of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.”
And after Mason accused the supervisors of wrongdoing from the stand, Ernst and Wildberger filed a more detailed memo with Diamond about why they had stepped off the case, including by saying that Krasner had asked them to “protect the office” and potentially violate their ethical oaths.
Three days later, Krasner responded with a filing of his own, saying Ernst and Wildberger’s assertions were both unauthorized and “ill-informed.”
And although he did not — and has not — denied saying he wanted to “protect the office,” he said in a later filing that he “plainly did not appreciate [his subordinates’] repeated, unsolicited, and wavering advice” to refer the case to state prosecutors, and that their recommendation was “inexpert and legally unsupported.”
He also said he’d hired an expert who agreed with him — Bruce Green, a professor at Fordham Law School — and later attached a memo written by Green to one of his filings. Diamond would go on to call Green’s memo “a disorganized mess and largely useless.”
In addition, Krasner said, as a measure of extreme caution and to ward off any suggestion of a potential conflict, he hired an outside attorney to handle the case on his office’s behalf: Jean Peters-Baker, a longtime prosecutor from Missouri who previously led the prosecutor’s office in the county that includes Kansas City.
Diamond later disqualified her, saying that because Krasner had been hampered by the conflict issues months before he reached out to Peters-Baker, his decision to bring her aboard was invalid.
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September 2026
‘Often contradictory, evasive, or outright dishonest.’
All of the law division supervisors went on to testify before Diamond, and he said in his Sept. 16 memorandum that he found their testimony, as well as Mason’s, “compelling and corroborated by contemporaneous documents.”
Although Mason had accused her supervisors of encouraging her to lie in court, Diamond found that they hadn’t done so, saying they’d sought to truthfully tell him about the issues in her brief, and that her “understandable dismay caused her to misunderstand” their intentions.
The judge took a dimmer view of Stiegler, calling his testimony “often contradictory, evasive, or outright dishonest.”
And although Diamond did not call Krasner to testify about the saga, he nonetheless criticized the DA in his memorandum for not taking the stand, saying Krasner “chose” not to testify, and noting he didn’t submit an affidavit to offer his version of events.
Diamond’s decision to alert federal prosecutors about the case, and say they should investigate potential crimes by Krasner and Stiegler, was practically unheard of, legal experts said. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has declined to comment, and any investigation it might pursue would likely take months.
Johnson’s petition, meanwhile, remains in limbo. Diamond said the district attorney’s office could continue to litigate it — but with Krasner, Stiegler, and the law divisions’ supervisors removed from the case, it was not clear who might do so.
Federal authorities on Thursday announced charges in a drug-and-gun-trafficking ring operating in Philadelphia and Luzerne Counties, with one of the defendants identified as a Philadelphia man who received a commutation from former President Joe Biden for a prior prison sentence.
Michael Rinaldi, 49, and Jason Lozada, 51, both of Philadelphia, were among eight people indicted by a grand jury, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Philadelphia Field Division said in a news release Thursday.
Prosecutors allege that the eight people conspired to distribute methamphetamine from August 2025 through September 2026, and also distributed fentanyl in addition to trafficking guns.
In the days before Biden left office, he granted clemency to nearly 2,500 individuals for what was described as non-violent drug offenses, and Rinaldi was one of the recipients.
Since taking office in January 2025, President Donald Trump has granted clemency to more than 1,700 people, including the roughly 1,500 people convicted for their involvement or who had charges pending for their alleged involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
It was early on a Friday evening, a week after her ninth birthday. Ashley Rivera, already in her pajamas, walked from her home to the 7-Eleven across the street to grab a snack. She was within eyesight of her stepdad, who sat on the front porch of their Kensington home, smoking Newports, crutches at his side.
Ashley left the convenience store and noticed a man in his 60s in a green Jeep. He had long, greasy, stringy hair and had been slowly circling the block.
At first, she didn’t pay him much attention. She lived in Kensington, where throngs of people suffering from addiction crowd the sidewalks, and sex workers linger under the El tracks. She figured he was just another guy looking to pay for drugs or a woman.
But he had his eyes on her.
The man pulled up, rolled down his window, and asked her to get into his car. He called her sexy.
Ashley moved away. But the man jumped out and gripped her arm tightly. She screamed for help as he dragged her toward his Jeep.
Even now, 17 years later, she remembers his eyes. “He looked very evil,” she said.
Sasha Rivera posed for a portrait at her home on Tuesday. Her daughter was 9 when accosted by Raymond Horsch in 2009.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Ashley Rivera, who is 26, was stunned to learn this week that the man who tried to abduct her was Raymond “R.C.” Horsch, the shock-seeking pornographer now linked to at least seven missing women.
Horsch’s Olney home, and his bizarre past, have been at the center of a sprawling local and federal investigation since June that has uncovered a trove of disturbing digital evidence suggesting he may have killed women he lured off the streets of Kensington.
He died in 2025 at the age of 82. His son, Eugene, with whom he shared the Olney twin, is in prison on federal charges from a June 19 car stop near Independence Hall, in which authorities recovered the fake ID of a missing woman. Eugene Horsch has not been accused of any violent crimes involving the deaths or disappearances of the women.
Rivera’s account is the first known instance of Raymond Horsch attempting to victimize a child, and shows his violent obsessions may have extended beyond the women in addiction he exploited for decades. It also offers new insight into how Horsch evaded consequences.
“I really do feel like I escaped something big,” Rivera said. “He could have kidnapped me. He could have done the same thing to me that he did to those women. He could have raped me, killed me.
“I was a 9-year-old girl. I was just a kid.”
An unforgettable face
Rivera credits her stepfather with helping her escape Horsch’s grip that evening in March 2009.
When he heard her scream, she said, he hobbled off the front porch and hit the back window of Horsch’s Jeep with one of his crutches. Horsch sped off.
Rivera ran inside, crying to her mother, Sasha, who called 911.
Sasha Rivera, in an interview this week, said she then ran outside and saw Horsch circling their block.
“I chased him with a baseball bat,” swinging it at the Jeep as he drove by, she said. “I thought he was going to kill her. If he had taken her, I may never have found my daughter.”
Sasha Rivera talks about the night that Raymond Horsch tried to abduct her daughter, who was 9 years old at the time. Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Police arrived to find Horsch near the 3200 block of Kensington Avenue, according to an arrest report. Inside his Jeep, officers found a pair of high-powered binoculars, a digital camera, a telephoto lens, an eye patch, and a condom.
Officers asked Ashley and her mother if this was the man who had tried to lure her into his car.
There was no question it was him.
“I couldn’t forget that face,” Ashley Rivera said.
‘I just broke down crying’
Police arrested Horsch, and he was charged with luring a child into a motor vehicle and corrupting the morals of a minor.
Several months later, in January 2010, Rivera appeared in a courtroom in the decaying former Family Court building on Vine Street to testify against Horsch.
Rivera shook as she walked to the stand to testify. Horsch and his lawyers sat just a few feet away. She said he glared at her, with one eye looking straight ahead and the other bulging out crookedly.
“I was so scared, and he just kept staring at me. I just broke down crying,” she said. “I felt like I was looking at a killer.”
Rivera said her testimony had to be cut short.
“They made me get off the stand because I was crying so much,” she said.
The prosecutor on the case, Jill Fertel, said Rivera had to sit through Horsch’s attorneys accusing her of lying and saying she was not as innocent as she appeared because she grew up in a rough neighborhood.
“They said the morals of a girl from Kensington were harder to corrupt than a girl from Chestnut Hill,” Fertel said, referring to a wealthier neighborhood near the city limits.
The memory she can’t escape
Common Pleas Court Judge Roger Gordon convicted Horsch of both counts and sentenced him to 2½ to 5 years in prison.
The conviction meant Horsch would have been required to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law, but he requested a “trial de novo,” or a new trial, in Common Pleas Court.
Unlike a typical appeal — in which a higher court reads the transcript of the lower-court proceedings to check for any legal or procedural errors — a trial de novo wipes the slate clean.
Ashley Rivera would have to testify again.
When she learned this, she begged her mother not to make her go back to court. Sasha Rivera, who is 46, said she could not put her daughter through such trauma again.
“I thought he and his family would do something to us,” Sasha Rivera said of Horsch.
A new prosecutor took over the case. But without Ashley Rivera, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office dropped the charges against Horsch. The original conviction was vacated and, in 2015, Horsch successfully petitioned for the case to be expunged.
Fertel said Rivera’s experience was “horrible.”
“The system was not designed for children,” she said. “There is a difference between being able to confront your accuser and being able to intimidate a victim.”
The state upgraded the crime of luring a child under the age of 13 to a felony in 2013. Fertel also said courts now more frequently allow children to testify on camera from another room to avoid their abuser.
Records from the case, including a psychological examination of Horsch, are at risk of being destroyed. The Inquirer has filed a motion with the court to preserve them and make them public, and a judge ruled Wednesday that they should not be immediately destroyed.
Ashley Rivera, who said she supports unsealing the records, said the incident with Horsch left her scared to play outside as a child. Even today, she said, she struggles with anxiety.
“When men stare at me, I’m instantly scared,” she said.
It has also affected the way she raises her son, who is the same age she was when Horsch grabbed her. She said she is afraid to let him go anywhere alone.
“We have a park down the block from my house, literally on the corner of my block,” she said. “He asks me, ‘Hey, Mom, can I go to the park by myself?’”
She tells him no. She’ll go with him. “And then he doesn’t want to go because he doesn’t want to go with his mom because all the other kids are by themselves.”
“I tried to get that memory out of my head,” she said. “But I can’t. It stays with me.”
Rivera now works as a receptionist in Northeast Philadelphia. She never realized Horsch walked free after she didn’t appear at his second trial. She said she feels guilt because had she been able to testify again as a child, perhaps the case would not have fallen apart.
“Maybe it’s my fault that he was free,” she said. “I thank God every day my stepdad was there to save me because I could be missing or dead. I feel really lucky.
“But I feel so bad for all the victims and their families. I didn’t have to go through what they went through.”
A Philadelphia judge on Wednesday ordered a temporary halt on the destruction of court records related to Raymond Horsch’s 2009 conviction for attempting to lure a 9-year-old girl into his car in Kensington.
The ruling comes in response to an emergency motion The Inquirer filed seeking to preserve records of the child endangerment case that Horsch had expunged from his record in 2015.
The news organization argued that preserving the records is a matter of public interest because of the ongoing criminal investigation into the violent pornographer, whom police have now linked to seven missing women.
Horsch was arrested in March 2009 after approaching 9-year-old Ashley Rivera on East Ontario Street and attempting to lure her into his green Jeep Wrangler.
“Come here, in my car, sexy girl,” Horsch said to Rivera, according to an arrest report.
Horsch, who died last year, spent decades prowling Kensington seeking sex workers to film or photograph nude. Until the incident with Rivera, he had not been publicly accused of targeting children.
Rivera ran home, and her parents called the police, according to the arrest report. Officers found Horsch driving in the area hours later in the green Jeep, the report said. They searched his vehicle and recovered a pair of high-powered binoculars, a camera with a telephoto lens, and a condom, according to a news report at the time.
Horsch was charged with two misdemeanor counts of attempting to lure a child into a vehicle and corrupting the morals of a minor. At a bench trial, Rivera gave a tearful statement about the incident as Horsch glared at her from across the courtroom.
He was found guilty and sentenced to 2 ½ to 5 years in prison, and was required to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law. However, Horsch’s lawyers sought a new trial in the Common Pleas Court and the case collapsed after Rivera was too afraid to testify a second time.
“I was so scared, and he just kept staring at me. I just broke down crying,” Rivera said this week, recounting her testimony at the first trial. “I felt like I was looking at a killer.”
The Inquirer reported on the 2015 expungement and the existence of the court records on Tuesday, after reporter Ellie Rushing learned the documents remained on file at the Criminal Justice Center. When Rushing sought to review them, a clerk denied the request, saying the records should have been destroyed after the expungement.
Rushing, on behalf of The Inquirer, wrote a letter to administrative judges on Monday requesting that the records be preserved.
Horsch is now dead, she wrote, and the records may “hold pieces of information that are irreplaceable and important to the public and the criminal investigation.”
Kaitlin M. Gurney, an attorney for The Inquirer, filed an emergency motion reiterating those points and seeking an order allowing the news organization “access to inspect and copy all filings.” (Gurney’s husband, Patrick Kerkstra, is a managing editor at The Inquirer.)
State expungement laws, Gurney wrote, extend only to criminal histories — such as arrest records — and not to judicial records.
“Allowing court records to be expunged and permanently destroyed — not just sealed — would create significant tension with the press and public’s constitutional and common-law rights,” the motion said.
Newspapers have a constitutional right to inspect court records, except in the “most extraordinary cases,” Gurney wrote.
“These rights to access do not disappear simply because a record has been deemed expunged,” she said, adding that in this case, Horsch’s subsequent actions and suspected involvement in the deaths of multiple women had effectively invalidated the expungement.
“Given the unusual circumstances of this case, and the strong public interest in Horsch’s activities, any expungement order should be vacated,” she wrote.
On Wednesday, Common Pleas Court Judge Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi, the supervising judge in the criminal division, ordered the Office of Judicial Records to cease “destroying or deleting any records” related to the case until further notice.
A hearing in the case is scheduled for Monday.
David Rudovsky, a prominent civil rights attorney, said that even with a deceased defendant and significant public interest, the case represents uncharted legal territory. A ruling to overturn the expungement could have far-reaching consequences, he said.
“It’s an extraordinary case,” Rudovsky said. “But I don’t know of any precedent in which an expungement can be reopened, even after the death of a defendant.”
Michael “Sandy” Sims was supposed to be back in Philadelphia by now, after a business trip to the West Coast. Instead, he is locked up in an ICE detention center in California.
Sims, 42, a veteran of the entertainment-lighting industry, told his wife that immigration agents were waiting for him when his Lyft driver pulled up at the San Jose airport early on Sept. 2.
Sims was born in Ireland and raised in London, and had been expecting approval of a green card that he and his wife, an American citizen, sought after they married in 2017.
Now he is in custody as U.S. airports become risky places for foreigners, amid an ICE push for ever-greater numbers of arrests.
“It’s horrible,” said Sims’ wife, Jennifer, 46. “We thought we were waiting for a green card.”
For so long, she said, the United States has been a beacon for people around the world who want to come, work, and contribute, to create better lives for their families. Now, she said, “the American dream is gone.”
The advocacy organization Asian Americans United, which works to track airport arrests, said it estimates more than 20 people have been arrested at Philadelphia International Airport or while seeking to fly there since July 12. That includes at least 13 taken into custody at the Philadelphia airport itself.
The Department of Homeland Security said Sims had entered the country legally but overstayed his visa.
“Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.,” DHS said in a statement. “Under President Trump and [Homeland Security] Secretary [Markwayne] Mullin, if you break the law, you will face the consequences.”
The department said Sims faces a criminal charge of domestic battery in Nevada, where he lived at one time. DHS provided no further details and, along with ICE, did not respond to requests for information on what allegedly happened and when.
In a search of Nevada court documents, The Inquirer could find no record of any criminal case against Sims. And Sims’ Philadelphia immigration lawyer, Hunter Yost, said he had no knowledge of and could locate no record of such a case.
Jennifer Sims said her husband has never been charged with a crime.
When she subsequently asked her husband about the government’s assertion that he had a pending criminal case, she said, he told her that when he was arrested and handcuffed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one of the agents kept saying, “You’re a wife-beater,” and the other repeatedly said, “No, he’s not.”
Jennifer Sims pictured with her husband, Michael “Sandy” Sims.Courtesy of the family
Sandy Sims sent a note from detention that was posted there:
“Hello to everyone from Dorm B Mesa Verde Detention Center,” he wrote. “Thank you one and all for your support. … I’m so grateful. Thank you all and I hope this situation will be over soon.”
Sims’ wife said he legally entered the U.S. on a work visa in 2016. When that expired, he was subsequently approved for entry under ESTA, the Electronic System for Travel Authorization. That is an online initiative the federal government uses to prescreen travelers before they visit the United States under the Visa Waiver Program.
Jennifer Sims said after they wed, she filed Form I-130, the document required to prove a valid family relationship with a foreigner who wants to immigrate to the United States. That application, she said, was approved in March 2020 ― a key step toward a green card. Her husband had completed his biometrics appointment, where the government collects the applicant’s fingerprints, photograph, and digital signature, three months earlier, she said.
He was given a U.S. Social Security number, she said.
The couple worries their green-card paperwork might have been lost when they relocated to Las Vegas and back to Philadelphia between 2018 and 2021.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s nationwide effort to increase arrests at U.S. airports has spurred warnings from immigration attorneys that even those with valid work permits and government-issued identification can be in danger.
An ICE summer push saw a record 49,571 people arrested across the nation in July, many of them taken into custody at airports, courthouses, and scheduled immigration check-ins. That is an average of 1,599 arrests a day, a 15% increase over the previous month, according to figures from the Deportation Data Project.
The July arrests included 1,174 in Pennsylvania and 2,112 in New Jersey.
Homeland Security said airport arrests are occurring because the Trump administration “reversed the horrendous Biden-era policy that allowed aliens in our country illegally to jet around our country.”
“Under President Trump, DHS will no longer tolerate this,” the agency said last month, as news spread of Philadelphia airport arrests. “This administration is working diligently to ensure that aliens in our country illegally can no longer fly unless it is out of our country to self-deport.”
The Trump administration says that its immigration-enforcement effort targets criminals, that it has been arresting and deporting killers, rapists, and child-abusers to make the country safer. However, the latest data showed that half of those arrested in July had no criminal convictions or charges, and less than 25% had been convicted of a crime.
Sandy Sims has worked in entertainment lighting since 2002, including on shows for Metallica, Usher, and Florence + the Machine, the popular English rock band, his wife said.
She said she feels as if the immigration system has been turned into a moneymaker, where people trying to follow the law are charged high fees, and private companies reap profits by keeping people in custody.
Automated red-light enforcement cameras caught up to 17.4% fewer violations this year than in 2025, according to the Philadelphia Parking Authority’s annual report to the state legislature.
Those cameras have been on guard in the city since 2005, but the program will expire next July, unless legislators renew the law that authorized them.
“The numbers speak for themselves, and our hope is that they see the benefit of it,” said Gabe Roberts, interim executive director of the PPA.
Recorded violations citywide declined from 340,931 in fiscal year 2025 to 338,979 in fiscal year 2026 — a decrease of 0.58%
However, four new intersections were added at different points during this fiscal year. For the PPA, the fiscal year runs from April 1 through March 31.
Excluding those four intersections, violations at existing program locations declined by 17.4%. Compared with 2024, they dropped 10.4%.
“The way we measure success is through consistent enforcement, demonstrated changes in behavior, fewer people running red lights, and safer streets,” Roberts said.
The red-light program has proved its worth, he said.
New locations
Over the 21 years of red-light cameras in the city, violations have trended down overall, Roberts said, though when a new location is added, tickets spike at first before leveling off and declining.
As of March 31, PPA was operating 160 cameras at 38 locations.
The newest locations are: 20th Street and John F. Kennedy Boulevard; Front Street and Hunting Park Avenue; Kelly Drive and Eakins Oval; and 58th Street and Baltimore Avenue.
Cameras there led to 50,589 warning notices and violations.
When a red-light camera is installed, there is a 45-day grace period when violators get a warning before tickets start. The fine is $100 per offense, but no points are assessed to a driver’s license.
There has been continued demand for red-light cameras in the city. PPA received requests for coverage of 19 intersections from the Philadelphia Office of Transportation and Infrastructure and City Council members through March 31.
Intersections are evaluated on the basis of crash statistics and a fresh traffic study that includes observations of violation levels there.
Also considered: sight lines, driveways, trees, wires, crosswalk visibility, and the condition of the surrounding infrastructure.
Usually an intersection gets some upgrades when red-light cameras are installed — new sidewalk accessibility ramps, new signal boxes, better lighting, more visible crosswalks, or the like, said deputy PPA director Corrine O’Connor.
“You’re not going to put cameras in and have old infrastructure out there,” said O’Connor, who is in charge of automated enforcement programs. “It’s an opportunity to make it better and safer.”
PPA says it typically takes one to two years to complete an intersection.
Speed cameras
In addition to the red-light program, PPA operates automated speed enforcement cameras.
A collection of Philadelphia grassroots nonprofits are suing the umbrella organization that lost them hundreds of thousands of dollars from years of mismanagement and poor accounting.
The 18 small groups have sued the Federation of Neighborhood Centers, a nonprofit that helped them and other small organizations manage grants. FNC, which operated as a fiscal sponsor for more than 100 Philadelphia grassroots nonprofits, collapsed last year after it was unable to distribute money owed to the groups.
After years of poor recordkeeping and spending itself into a deficit, and in some cases using money designated for one group to pay another, the organization froze outgoing payments by the end of summer 2025and ceased operations by the end of the year.
Each of the 18 organizations says it held a positive cash balance with FNC at the time of its collapse. The fiscal sponsor lost more than $426,000 belonging to 24 groups, a third-party audit found. The suit claims the groups had to shut down or cut back operations as a result of the nonprofit’s financial mismanagement.
The fiscal sponsor’s then-CEO, Michael Harbison, resigned in August 2025. He did not have relevant experience in an executive, management, or financial accounting role, and “does not know why he was hired” as CEO, according to the complaint filed last week in Common Pleas Court.
The complaint alleges the Federation of Neighborhood Centers should have known about its financial challenges by early 2024, and did not have an adequate workforce to meet the demands of administering fiscal sponsorship services for over 100 small organizations.
The current CEO, Demir Moore, acknowledged the nonprofit had grown too quickly and took on more clients than it could handle without proper financial guardrails, the complaint said. The collapse of the fiscal sponsorship program was due to a “lapse of management,” Moore previously told The Inquirer, a comment that was quoted in the lawsuit. Moore also said the downfall was “absolutely not attributable to malfeasance or embezzlement.”
Participants listen to speakers during a February town hall for projects affected by FNC’s collapse.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
Moore did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the plaintiffs’ attorneys with Ballard Spahr.
As the Federation of Neighborhood Centers collapsed and froze operations, Social Impact Commons, an organization that supports fiscal sponsors, came in to conduct the financial audit. It also assisted the fiscal sponsorship program’s shutdown, including helping some grassroots organizations transition to new fiscal sponsors.
By the time it finished working with FNC in February, Social Impact Commons found 34 projects had gone to new fiscal sponsors or independent nonprofits, 39 were closed or defunct, and 31 had yet to transition. It’s unclear what has happened to those remaining projects since then, or if they have found any financial relief.
The 18 organizations suing FNC represent a wide range of missions, like improving food access, empowering underrepresented young filmmakers, supporting mothers who have lost children to violence, animal rescue, and more.
