Lawyer Representing Convicted Contractor In Building Collapse Trial Claims Prosecution Was Racially Tainted

By Steve Tawa

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A lawyer in the deadly Salvation Army thrift store collapse trial alleges the African-American demolition contractor who was convicted was targeted because of racial profiling by a prosecutor caught up in the so-called Porngate scandal.

Defense lawyer William Hobson is seeking acquittal or a new trial for his client, Griffin Campbell. He says it's due to the manner in which senior Assistant DA Frank Fina guided the initial grand jury investigation into the 2013 Market Street collapse in which six people were killed.

"Two poor African American men are the only two charged. All the rich white guys walk," said Hobson.

Hobson wonders why Fina did not pursue higher ups in the chain - the building owner Richard Basciano, property manager Thomas Simmonds and architect Plato Marinakas. Neither Basciano nor Simmonds were criminally charged, and Marinakas received immunity from prosecution for his testimony.

Hobson contends Fina improperly went after Campbell and his excavator, Sean Benschop, who is also African-American, but no white men were charged.

"It's no accident. It's no coincidence, and it's tied into the same selective prosecution," said Hobson.

Hobson says when he subpoenaed the building owner and property manager at the criminal stage, the Richard Sprague law firm indicated their clients would be asserting their 5th Amendment rights and not testify. Hobson says he was precluded from dragging them to court and having them take the 5th from the witness stand.

Hobson says now that depositions are being taken for an upcoming civil proceeding, all of those principals are waiving their 5th Amendment rights, and are giving verbal depositions.

"They now will pay simply in dollars, not in prison time," said Hobson.

Fina was said to be on the sending or receiving end of a chain of demeaning racist and pornographic emails several years ago, while working in the state Attorney General's Office.

District Attorney Seth Williams, under intense pressure, re-assigned Fina and two other prosecutors caught up in Porngate to less visible positions.

DA Williams says the matter was put before a Grand Jury and it found sufficient evidence to charge two people, based on evidence, not race.