Bruce Lee Castor Jr.Pennsylvania state reports - Volume 591, 2007 (born October 24, 1961) is an American lawyer and former Republican politician from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. He was appointed as the first Solicitor General of Pennsylvania in March 2016, and also first deputy attorney general the following July. Castor became acting state attorney general less than a month later. He investigated the Penn State fraternity hazing scandal and led for the defense of the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump along with lawyers William J Brennan, David I. Schoen, and Michael T. van der Veen.
Statewide profile
After serving stints beginning in 1981 with, respectively, the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, the Northampton County District Attorney's Office, as an LBJ Congressional Scholar (Washington, DC), and defending Federal prisoners at FPC-Alderson, Castor began his professional career as an assistant district attorney in 1985 before becoming district attorney of Montgomery County from 2000 to 2008. He next took a seat on the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, an elected position he held until January 4, 2016, when he was succeeded by Joe Gale. Castor was defeated for re-election as Montgomery County's District Attorney in November 2015. Castor completed a nearly three-year term as a special assistant district attorney of Centre County, Pennsylvania on December 31, 2017, followed by an appointment as a special assistant district attorney of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania on January 6, 2018. On March 29, 2016, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced Castor's appointment (back-dated to March 21, when he actually took office) to the newly created position of Solicitor General of Pennsylvania. While he operated freely as the de facto Attorney General and was widely recognized as such, Castor formally became the state's Acting Attorney General, replacing Kane, who resigned on August 17, 2016, following a conviction of a third degree felony perjury charge and several related misdemeanors.Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Kathleen Granahan Kane (2015) CP-46-CR-0006239-2015 Governor Tom Wolf later nominated Bruce Beemer to fulfill the remaining balance of Kane's term which expired in January 2017. Castor is the cousin of Steve Castor, who represented Trump during his first impeachment.
Career
Montgomery County District Attorney
After serving in the office since 1985, Castor was twice elected district attorney for Montgomery County, in which he is a lifelong resident, assuming office in January 2000. After his second term ended, he was succeeded by Risa Vetri Ferman. When she sought (and won) election as judge in November 2015, Castor sought to return to that office, but lost to Ferman's first assistant, Kevin Steele, who ran an 11th-hour campaign contending Castor should have charged entertainer Bill Cosby in 2005. Castor countered that Steele could have arrested Cosby himself in the intervening years if he believed credible evidence existed to do so. A week before the election, Andrea Constand, who had accused Cosby of sexual assault in Montgomery County, sued Castor, claiming he defamed her by intimating she was not credible. The Washington Post said that this suit contributed to Castor's defeat. In November 2017, Castor sued Constand and her lawyers for defamation, charging that the lawsuit and its timing were retaliatory and ruined his political career. In 2017, Cosby stood trial, but the trial ended in a hung jury with jurors unable to agree on Cosby's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, as Castor had predicted in 2005 would happen if he had elected to charge Cosby. However at Cosby's retrial he was convicted on all three counts and he was sentenced to serve 3 to 10 years in prison. After two years of time served the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the sentence, ruling that Castor's pledge to not prosecute Cosby was binding on all other prosecutors.
Notable cases
Bill Cosby – Castor declined to prosecute Cosby for sexual assault in 2005 after he found "insufficient, credible and admissible evidence exists upon which any charge against Mr. Cosby could be sustained beyond a reasonable doubt". In November 2014 and through the November 2015 election, Castor's decision was heavily criticized, especially when other women came forward to accuse Cosby. Castor, however, assessed that none of these women known to him at the time would have been allowed to testify, making them legally irrelevant to the question of whether Castor should have arrested Cosby. On December 30, 2015, with the statute of limitations about to expire, Cosby was charged with felony sexual assault. At a preliminary hearing on February 2, 2016, Castor testified that he made a promise to never prosecute Cosby for the incident, but Judge Steven T. O'Neill ruled that the promise was not legally binding on the current district attorney, and ordered that the criminal case proceed. O'Neill further found that only Castor's word and no other evidence supported his contention and that the deal had never been memorialized in writing, and Castor was ultimately not a credible witness.Pa. Republicans are stumped by Trump's pick of Bruce Castor for his impeachment defense, Philadelphia Inquirer, Remy Roebuck, Andrew Seidman and Laura McCrystal, February 1, 2021. Retrieved February 9, 2021. O'Neill's ruling was reversed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on June 30, 2021, which held that Castor's non-prosecution pledge was in fact binding on Cosby's prosecutor; this ruling resulted in the overturning of Cosby's conviction and his release from prison. The court that Castor's decision to announce publicly that no prosecution would take place "was made deliberately to induce the deprivation of a fundamental right"— namely, Cosby's Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, forcing him to testify in Constand's civil suit against him. That testimony formed the basis for the subsequent criminal case. Dillon Cossey – Planned a Columbine-style attack on a local high school. Cossey was convicted in juvenile court. John Eichinger – The most prolific arrested serial killer documented in Montgomery County history. Eichinger murdered three young women and a small child. Two of the women had rejected his sexual advances and the other woman and child were witnesses. Eichinger received three death sentences and one sentence of life in prison. The case formed the basis for the production of a demo video for a proposed television show based on Castor's career called "Probable Cause", written and produced in 2007 by then Times Herald reporter Keith Phucas in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Caleb Fairley – Fairley sexually assaulted and murdered a mother and her child in his parents' shop in 1995, earning a double life sentence.Caleb Fairley Case, Crimelibrary.com Caleb Fairley case at crimelibrary.com The case was the first time DNA evidence was used to convict a killer in Montgomery County. The Fairley case formed the basis for the book Vampire Trap by Katherine Ramsland. Castor is featured on the episode of Forensic Files ("Shopping Spree") devoted to the case. Bruce Godschalk – Godschalk was convicted of rape in 1987 (before Castor was elected) and was freed in 2002 after DNA tests cast doubt on his guilt. Castor had fought against DNA testing, arguing that Godschalk did not have the legal right to it.Sara Rimer, Convict's DNA Sways Labs, Not a Determined Prosecutor, The New York Times, Reprinted at www.crimlaw.com, 10/6/02 Godschalk filed a lawsuit against the county, which was settled for approximately $1 million. In 2009, the United States Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in a similar case that convicts did not have a constitutional right to DNA testing. Craig Rabinowitz – Rabinowitz murdered his wife, Stefanie Newman, in 1997 for the life insurance money to pay debts arising from a pyramid scheme, and to leave him free to pursue his obsession with a stripper. The case was front-page news for months and became the subject of multiple television programs and a book by Ken Englade called Everybody's Best Friend. He pleaded guilty to first degree murder and is serving a life sentence.Anne Barnard, Steve Ritea and Ralph Vigoda, Rabinowitz Admits Killing Wife - A dream urged him to 'do the right thing', The Philadelphia Inquirer, October 10, 1997-10-31.Husband guilty of murder - obsession with stripper led to strangulation, Associated Press, 1997-10-31 Rafael Robb – Robb, a University of Pennsylvania professor of game theory, was accused of murdering his wife in a rage. Pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 5–10 years in prison, a sentence many believe was too lenient, with Castor arguing for a 20-year prison term. Guy Sileo – Sileo murdered his business partner in the General Wayne Inn, serving a life sentence for first degree murder. A highly circumstantial case, the "General Wayne Inn murder" has been the subject of numerous television portrayals.Families, friends of victims give support to candidate, Pottstown Mercury 4/24/04
Attorney General race
Castor ran for the GOP nomination for Pennsylvania Attorney General in 2004 against Republican Tom Corbett. Furious that he had lost endorsements of the southeastern GOP chairmen, Castor attacked Corbett and the county chairmen with allegations of backroom deals with Bob Asher, the state's national GOP committeeman. Castor and Asher had feuded for several years due to Asher's prior felony convictions for perjury, bribery, racketeering, and conspiracy in 1986 in the context of a political corruption scandal which also involved the State Treasurer, R. Budd Dwyer, leading to Dwyer's committing suicide at a press conference before his sentencing. Asher had been state GOP Chair during the scandal and was convicted for participating in the bribery of Dwyer. Asher's criminal past, connected to a political bribery scheme while he was the Republican state chair, became a subject of the campaign for the state's top law enforcement post.
Castor was unable to produce proof of any conspiracy against him and ran without the party endorsement in all but two counties, his home base in Montgomery County and Monroe County. Castor lost 52.8% to 47.2%, despite winning overwhelmingly the same southeastern counties whose chairmen had repudiated him, and his home in Montgomery County, where he took nearly 82.5% of the vote.
Private practice When his term as district attorney expired in January 2008, Castor took a position at the litigation firm of Elliott, Greenleaf & Siedzikowski in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania as a shareholder and director. One of his notable clients was professional basketball player Marko Jaric of the Memphis Grizzlies, who was accused of sexual assault in Philadelphia. Jaric was not charged in the case. In 2009, Castor represented Mark Sargent, who was investigated (but not charged) for patronizing a brothel while he served as dean of the Villanova University School of Law. In 2010, Castor represented his former boss, attorney Michael D. Marino, whose nephew accidentally shot and killed a man while hunting. Marino, a former Montgomery County D.A., was present when the shooting occurred, despite knowing that his nephew was prohibited from owning and using firearms, owing to a felony conviction. Marino was not charged in the case. On July 1, 2013, Castor joined the law firm of Rogers & Associates (subsequently renamed Rogers Castor) as a civil-litigation lawyer in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, with former Lower Merion Commissioner and former Republican state senate nominee, Lance Rogers. Castor and Rogers Castor, renamed as Rogers Counsel, parted ways on December 31, 2020, and Bruce J Castor joined the personal injury law firm of van der Veen, Hartshorn & Levin. In 2017, Castor led the investigation into the Death of Tim Piazza at Pennsylvania State University.
Montgomery County commissioner