Newly elected State Rep. Movita Johnson-Harrell, the first Muslim woman elected to the Pennsylvania legislature, has been arrested on corruption charges.
Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced the charges this morning against Johnson-Harrell, who won the 190th District seat in a special election last March. They include theft, perjury and tampering with public records.
Shapiro said Johnson-Harrell has agreed to plead guilty to the charges and will face jail time. She turned herself in to authorities in Philadelphia on Wednesday morning.
“She has accepted responsibility for her crimes,” Shapiro said in a press conference in Harrisburg. “She is going to plead guilty. She is going to spend time behind bars.”
Shapiro said the investigation that led to the arrest began in 2018, when a personal care home in the Powelton neighborhood run by Johnson-Harrell’s non-profit closed after it was discovered that residents, who were paying through Medicare and Social Security income, were unattended and living in what Shapiro called “squalor”.
The discovery led investigators to look into the finances of the non-profit Motivations Education and Consultation Associates (MECA), which Johnson-Harrell started. Shapiro said that the investigation showed that Johnson-Harrell siphoned more than $500,000 from the non-profit for her personal use. He alleged she used the money for furs, car payments on her Porsche, vacations, mortgage payments and to fund her unsuccessful state house election campaign in 2016 and the successful one this year.
“MECA’s actual mission was to serve as a cash account for Johnson-Harrell’s own personal means,” Shapiro said.
Johnson-Harrell easily won a special election last March in the 190th District, which covers Belmont, Carroll Park, Cathedral Park, Cobbs Creek, Mill Creek, Haddington, East Parkside, West Powelton, Strawberry Mansion, Allegheny West and Lehigh West.
The 190th District seat seat opened when former Rep. Vanessa Lowery Brown was forced to resign in December after being convicted of bribery charges. Local Democratic leaders chose Johnson-Harrell after their first two choices withdrew following allegations in The Philadelphia Inquirer that they did not live in the district.
Johnson-Harrell became an advocate for victims of violence after her 18-year-old son Charles was murdered in 2011. She was named to head Victims Services in District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office in 2018.
Several charges against her stem from her falsification of income disclosure forms she filed for the job in the district attorney’s office and for her state legislature campaign, Shapiro said.
Shapiro did not detail any plea arrangement.
Johnson-Harrell could not be reached for comment. She told Philadelphia Magazine that she will officially resign later this month.
“I vigorously dispute most of these allegations,” she said. “I intend to accept responsibility for any wrongdoings that I have done before I took office.”
December 4th, 2019 at 12:47 pm
Surprise, surprise. Corrupt Philly politicians. Oh, that’s right her predecessor was also a crook. Having lived in West Philly for years (and no I didn’t vote for her) it’s pathetic to see how people were led to vote for her. She played on her color, her gender, her family tragedy, her “work” in DA’s office, and her religion. None of those things qualified her. None which matter if someone is really competent. She wasn’t competent or honest. The people who voted for her got suckered but shouldn’t be surprised.
December 4th, 2019 at 2:04 pm
Why isn’t this listed under “crime watch”? Are we only supposed to watch for street crime?
December 4th, 2019 at 6:40 pm
“With West Philly state rep, 60 public officials have been arrested by PA attorney general”
Two-thirds of the 60 arrested over the past two years were police officers or other law enforcement officials, including prosecutors, probation and corrections officers. Charges against them ranged from falsifying police paperwork to soliciting prostitutes while on the job.
https://billypenn.com/2019/12/04/with-west-philly-state-rep-60-public-officials-have-been-arrested-by-pa-attorney-general/
December 5th, 2019 at 12:50 am
Gee, I hope we can find someone who can follow in the prior public servants’ footsteps. The district has very demanding standards. It takes years and much hard work to get to the point where one can consider running for office. Maybe she has a husband/partner or some other family member who can fill in. I certainly hope she has a good retirement nest egg saved up. Its always nice to see that people from all sorts of religious backgrounds and beliefs can find ways to practice their faith while ripping off the public dime.
December 5th, 2019 at 2:52 am
Some of us are more equal than others. In other words, gender, race, religion and other labels of that nature can be deployed to stigmatize all kinds of groups but are done much more to some than to others.
December 5th, 2019 at 7:25 am
@American Dream. What’s that have to do with the price of tea in China? This person is a corrupt politician. Gender,race, religion, have nothing to do with it. No stigmatization here.
December 5th, 2019 at 8:57 am
Watching him shoehorn his agenda into every thread is so cringeworthy.
“Yeah, this woman literally did the exact thing I rail about in every thread, but even though I’m a pretend citizens advocate and she had people living in squalor while spending money on furs and a Porsche, she’s not a gentrifier, so look over here at something else.”
December 5th, 2019 at 9:09 am
Institutional corruption exists on all levels. Philadelphia has a huge problem with machine politics. Superficial liberalism does have a weakness for performances of “diversity” that are not backed by a willingness to truly fight the Power. These are all givens.
So whether or not the negative references towards religion, race & gender are in the guise of liberalism or not, it seems that they represent a reactionary agenda which is extremely out of synch with the “West Philly” most all of us know.
No tears lost for Ms. Johnson-Harrell, but she is mostly just the canary in the coalmine and finding alternatives will push us farther forward, not farther back.
December 6th, 2019 at 9:55 am
What really upsets me is how such a crook can be chosen by party leaders and voters alike to replace another crook.
December 6th, 2019 at 9:38 pm
@ Hermes Welcome to Filthydelphia where both the streets and politicians are dirty. Seriously the city has been in a Democratic Party stranglehold for years. People elect people like Movita Johnson-Harrell who project an image of caring while enriching themselves. She was not qualified to hold office. She couldn’t manage her own life and finances. Why did anyone think she could provide leadership for the community?
December 6th, 2019 at 11:13 pm
The Machine is deeply problematic but that’s not going to make the Republican Party into heroes or anything. Kendra Brooks, Larry Krasner, Helen Gym- these are the best that I know of around here.
December 7th, 2019 at 1:31 pm
@ American Dream If they’re the best you know then there’s no dream, only a nightmare. Krasner has no business being DA. He fired some of the best people when he took office with his “progressive” views, coddles criminals,and disrespects victims’ families. Hopefully he will only serve one term. If he is re-elected then Philadelphians can only blame themselves for the rising crime in the city.
December 7th, 2019 at 1:46 pm
“West Philly”, which local politicians are you endorsing?
December 7th, 2019 at 5:04 pm
@American Dream NONE!
December 7th, 2019 at 7:54 pm
Nikil Saval is another good one:
https://whyy.org/articles/left-wing-challenger-nikil-saval-announces-bid-to-unseat-pa-sen-larry-farnese/
December 8th, 2019 at 4:33 pm
It’s more a blessing to give than it is to receive, except in the case of this comment thread (myself not excluded), OPINIONS. Yeesh! Everybody’s got one…so on and so forth.
December 9th, 2019 at 11:16 am
The critique of Krasner here refelects the F.O.P/Trump/Fox type view. There is however a pushback in a very different direction:
“Tell Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney: No New FOP Contract Without Accountability”
https://act.colorofchange.org/letter/philly-fop-accountability/?mc_cid=89dfad1523
December 15th, 2019 at 10:14 pm
Come out tomorrow, Monday to support:
https://www.facebook.com/events/2355158128128123/
We are facing a crisis of accountability in the Philadelphia Police Department. And we are outraged at a police department that has hundreds of documented racists on the force, that rehires abusive cops after they are fired, that stops Black and Brown drivers with unfounded accusations of marijuana smoking, with zero evidence, and that has made community access to police complaint database records next to impossible.