Philadelphia’s rogue prosecutor, Larry Krasner, has sued billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, arguing that he conducted an illegal lottery under Pennsylvania law because he said he would pay individuals $1 million a day to sign a petition supporting the First and Second amendments.
But the one case Krasner relies on to support his legal theory actually undercuts his entire argument.
Krasner, a Democrat who is one of George Soros’ bought-and-paid-for district attorneys, doesn’t care about the law. He is doing this to assuage his insatiable desire for media attention.
It’s also a bit rich of Krasner to sue Musk, since the Philadelphia DA is a two-time violator of state campaign finance laws.
Krasner refers to himself as a “public defender with power”; criminals on the street call him “Uncle Larry.” He won his race for district attorney in 2017 thanks to a boat load of money from Soros-funded groups, as Heritage Foundation colleague Zack Smith and I wrote here.
Krasner received $1.7 million from the Soros-funded groups, including Real Justice PAC, a political action committee based in San Francisco.
When Krasner ran for reelection in 2021, he received $1.25 million from the same groups. In both races, he broke campaign finance laws and got into hot water with Philadelphia’s Board of Ethics.
In 2019, in a settlement with the ethics board, Krasner paid a $4,000 fine and reimbursed the city for excess in-kind contributions from Real Justice PAC. He acknowledged violating the law, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
It’s bad enough to violate campaign finance laws once. But Krasner did it again in his reelection campaign in 2021—and was caught.
The Inquirer reported that Krasner’s campaign agreed to pay $10,000 in penalties and admitted making misstatements. He again entered into a settlement agreement with the Board of Ethics.
Back to Krasner’s suit against Musk, who in July endorsed Republican Donald Trump for president over Democrat Kamala Harris.
As a prosecutor for the city and county of Philadelphia, Krasner has no legal ability to prosecute anyone for alleged violations of federal law. So instead, he is pulling an Alvin Bragg by concocting a flimsy legal theory that Musk somehow is violating Pennsylvania’s lottery law.
As my Heritage Foundation colleague Hans von Spakovsky wrote here, Musk isn’t paying individuals to register to vote; he is paying already-registered voters to sign a petition, which is entirely lawful.
And what does the petition stand for? The actual language is: “First and Second Amendments guarantee freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. By signing below, I am pledging my support for the First and Second Amendment.”
Each day, one individual who signs the petition in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, or North Carolina will be awarded $1 million, Musk said.
As von Spakovsky noted, “there is no direct quid pro quo between getting paid and getting registered; the quid pro quo is getting paid for signing the petition, but the offer is open only to registered voters.”
In his civil complaint against Musk, Krasner asserts that by “lulling” registered voters into giving their personal identifying information such as their postal address, cellphone number, and email address, voters have paid Musk consideration—as when a person gives a dollar to purchase a Mega Millions lottery ticket.
Krasner cites an opinion from an appeals court in Pennsylvania in the case of Commonwealth v. Lane that laid out the elements of an unlawful lottery. Under Pennsylvania law, the court said, a lottery is unlawful if it satisfies three elements: (1) a prize to be won; (2) a winner to be determined by chance; and (3) the payment of consideration by the player.
Here, the first two elements are satisfied. But the third element is nowhere to be found.
Consideration is the payment of money, which is completely lacking in the Musk proposal. Registered voters didn’t pay money to sign the petition. Their personally identifiable information isn’t, under either the Lane case or state law, “consideration.”
Krasner’s gambit won’t work as a legal matter. But that never has been his top priority. Nor has public safety.
Krasner has been a disaster as Philadelphia’s district attorney, as Smith and I wrote in the book “Rogue Prosecutors.” Crime has exploded in Philly as a result of Krasner’s pro-criminal, anti-victim, cop-hating policies.
In the five years before he was elected, an average of 271 homicides occurred per year. Since he was elected in 2017, an average of 368 homicides per year have occurred—an “extra” 97 dead bodies per year.
Other crimes also exploded on Krasner’s watch non-fatal shootings (an average of 1,588 per year, up from 1,047), aggravated assaults while armed (3,116, up from 2,209), retail theft (9,084, up from 7,412), and auto thefts (8,665, up from 5,691).
Krasner brags about this year’s falling homicide rate, hoping Philadelphians will forget about the fact that between 2008 and 2017, homicides were in the 200s per year. Under his reign, however, homicides have been in the 300s and 400s per year.
Both Democrats and Republicans in Pennsylvania have rebuked Krasner.
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives impeached him by a vote of 107-85 for abuse of prosecutorial discretion.
The Legislature passed and Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, signed into law Act 40, creating a special prosecutor to handle all crimes on the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority, the public railroad system known as SEPTA that includes Philadelphia. Shapiro and the Legislature did so because Krasner was failing to hold criminals accountable for crimes they committed on public transit.
Krasner, like former rogue prosecutors such as Baltimore’s defeated Marilyn Mosby, St. Louis’ Kim Gardner, who resigned under pressure, and San Francisco’s recalled Chesa Boudin, has been an absentee district attorney. He has traveled around the country on boondoggles and visited law schools trying to recruit “woke” law students to work in his office.
All that Uncle Larry cares about is Uncle Larry. But Elon Musk is not your typical defendant.
Perhaps someone should advise Uncle Larry about Pennsylvania’s rules prohibiting malicious prosecution and the limits of prosecutorial immunity.
