A State College defense attorney tried to have the Centre County District Attorney removed from all his cases, but it appears that attempt has failed.
District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller confirms that she and her office are still prosecuting all of attorney Phil Masorti’s cases, despite his efforts to have her disqualified.
Masorti — who is one three attorneys who’ve recently attempted to remove the DA from their cases — first filed his motion to disqualify over a month ago. Bruce Castor, a specially appointed assistant district attorney, says a hearing on Masorti’s motion was supposed to be held last week, but that hearing never came to pass.
Parks Miller appointed Castor an ADA earlier this month specifically to deal with attempts to remove her from handling cases. Caster is also Parks Miller’s personal attorney.
According to the county’s court records, Masorti has since asked to withdraw his motion to disqualify Parks Miller in a legal document called a “praecipe”. That document is filed under seal, and its contents are not available to the public. Masorti declined comment when contacted by StateCollege.com.
Masorti’s motion to disqualify is connected to an increasingly complicated web of accusations and lawsuits that involves court officers, elected officials and defense attorneys in Centre County.
One of Masorti’s employees, who once worked as a paralegal for Parks Miller, has signed an affidavit accusing Parks Miller of forging a judge’s signature. That accusation has kicked off an tumultuous conflict between Parks Miller, the Centre County Commissioners and a number of defense attorneys. Parks Miller denies the allegation, and the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General is conducting an investigation.
It was against this backdrop that Masorti first brought up his intent to have the DA disqualified at a routine hearing in front of Magisterial District Judge Steve Lachman on March 11.
“There’s a real conflict that exists between Ms. Parks Miller…and me personally, which is so obvious and palpable that it really doesn’t need, I think, to be discussed that much,” Masorti said, according to a transcript of the hearing.
Masorti went on to tell the judge that he is “a grand jury witness in a prosecution against her and did testify a couple of weeks ago.” He told the court that he didn’t believe Parks Miller would treat his client fairly because of his involvement in the forgery allegations and investigation.
Masorti said he was especially worried that Parks Miller would unfairly keep his clients from entering Pennsylvania’s Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD) program, which expunges the records of people who have committed minor crimes.
In response, Parks Miller began by telling the court that Masorti’s description of the grand jury proceedings was inaccurate.
“It’s Mr. Masorti who says to you that he’s a witness against me, which I’m not even sure he’s allowed to say,” Parks Miller said, according to the transcript. “…I very much take issue with that. He’s a witness all right, but I’m not sure it’s against me.”
Representatives from the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts have declined to comment on the reported grand jury hearings.
Parks Miller went on to characterize Masorti’s motion as an attempt to “jam up the criminal justice system and delay justice for victims.” She also said she “would never hold [Masorti’s] peculiar and questionable behavior against any of his clients.”
Fellow State College defense attorney Sean McGraw has also recently and unsuccessfully attempted to have Parks Miller removed from some of his cases. Like Masorti, McGraw voiced concerns that his clients would be unfairly denied entry to the ARD program because of the conflict between himself and Parks Miller.
McGraw also claimed it was a conflict of interest for the DA to prosecute his cases because she is currently suing his law firm.
Parks Miller’s lawsuit against McGraw and his employer, the Shubin Law Firm, is separate from the forgery allegations — but it involves many of the same players. Parks Miller filed her suit against McGraw and the Shubin firm because the county released some of her work phone records to the firm in response to Right to Know requests, which she claims is an illegal violation of her privacy.
McGraw used those phone records to make his first attempt at disqualifying the DA. He claimed the phone records showed an inappropriate level of communication between judges and prosecutors, so he unsuccessfully argued that some judges were biased toward Parks Miller.
Two county judges who also had their phone records released to attorneys are also suing the county in two lawsuits that are very similar to Parks Miller’s.
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