Contractor claims he was prosecuted in wall collapse because of his race.
The lawyer for Griffin Campbell, the demolition contractor found guilty in the deadly 2013 Center City building collapse, filed an emergency motion Thursday asking that the verdict be overturned because of “selective racial prosecution.”
At issue, defense lawyer William D. Hobson contends, is that the Philadelphia grand jury probe that led to charges against Campbell and excavator operator Sean Benschop was supervised by Assistant District Attorney Frank Fina.
Fina is the former state prosecutor accused by Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane of using government computers to swap pornography and racial and ethnic jokes among a group of fellow state prosecutors and state officials, including Supreme Court Justice J. Michael Eakin.
Although the dispute between Kane and Fina is much broader than the emails, the fact that some emails involved crude racial humor gave Hobson new ammunition in his long-standing contention that racial bias tainted the probe into the June 5, 2013, collapse that killed six and injured 13.
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