Raymond “R.C.” Horsch’s lawyer told a judge that former Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street wrote a letter asking police not to arrest Horsch because he was working on a documentary about women in addiction in Kensington, according to newly unsealed court records.
At Horsch’s sentencing for federal gun and drug crimes in 2012, attorney Jerome Brown told U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick that his client was a good man with much to contribute to society, including that he was working on a documentary “about prostitution and heroin addiction” in Kensington.
“In fact, and I don’t have it with me, he even had a letter from Mayor Street that said, if you — don’t arrest him because he’s doing something good here,” Brown told the judge, according to a transcript of the hearing.
Street, the patriarch of a prominent political family who was Philadelphia mayor from 2000 until 2008, did not immediately respond to multiple phone calls or a letter delivered to his home seeking comment Tuesday.
His son, State Sen. Sharif Street, cast doubt on Brown’s claim that his father wrote a letter for Horsch, saying it was out of character.
“It sounds like he made up a fake letter,” Sharif Street said of Horsch.
Brown did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Inquirer has not independently reviewed the letter. Horsch was known to embellish facts of his life and forged documents, including passports, IDs, and cash. His adult son, Eugene, was arrested earlier this year with a fake federal drug enforcement badge.
Sgt. Eric Gripp, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Police Department, said that to his knowledge the department did not issue letters to filmmakers that matched Brown’s description.
However, Jill Fertel, a former Philadelphia prosecutor, said she recalled a different lawyer for Horsch presenting a physical copy of a similar letter at his 2010 sentencing for an unrelated Municipal Court case over an attempt to lure a 9-year-old girl into his car in Kensington.
Fertel said she was not able to examine the letter at that time but recalled that Horsch’s attorney presented it as from “someone high up in City Hall, or the police department.”
“I remember it being given to the judge and being relied upon for sentencing,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “[The attorney] suggested that it was to be handed to cops in case he was stopped, to show police why he was lawfully in the area, because he was making a documentary about prostitution in Kensington.”
She recalled being shocked at the time.
“I remember thinking how on earth is it possible that he has these connections? And what does it say about people in government that they’re connected to Raymond Horsch?” she said.
Horsch sought a new trial in the child-luring case, and when the 9-year-old victim did not reappear in court, the charges were withdrawn and his original conviction was vacated. The case was later expunged, and all court filings in the case were sealed.
Although it is unclear if such a letter survived the expungement order, lawyers for The Inquirer have asked a judge to unseal those records. A hearing in the matter has been scheduled for Nov. 10.
The transcript from Horsch’s sentencing hearing, which was made public Tuesday alongside other case documents at The Inquirer’s request, gave new insight into the information Horsch provided to federal prosecutors, ultimately convincing a federal judge to hand him a greatly reduced prison sentence.
Other filings unsealed last week showed Horsch told federal officials about a child sex trafficking ring, fraud, and drug crimes as he faced charges for owning multiple illegal guns and for running a sprawling marijuana grow operation out of his Bucks County home. He faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison, but was ultimately handed a sentence of just 4 ½ years behind bars, plus five years of probation.
Police now believe that following his early release from federal prison in 2013, Horsch went on to kill women in addiction whom he met on the streets in Kensington. Detectives found video footage of Horsch apparently strangling one woman who went missing in 2018 on camera, and photos of several other women alive inside his house and then dead. Seven missing women have been tied to Horsch and his home on Chew Avenue in Olney. Five have been presumed dead.
The alleged Street letter raises new questions about the violent pornographer’s interactions with city leadership and law enforcement, and whether there were missed opportunities for law enforcement to intervene prior to the disappearances.
At the 2012 sentencing hearing, Brown told Surrick that Horsch did not solicit women in Kensington but was “doing some good works” by documenting drug addiction. Horsch, in interviews about his pornographic career, openly admitted to using drugs and cash to entice these women into having sex with him on camera, often staging violent death scenes that Horsch later marketed as snuff films.
Other records released Tuesday show that Horsch and his attorneys also pleaded for a reduced sentence based on the importance of his familial relationships, various mental and physical health issues and his age. His lawyers argued that more jail time would be an effective life sentence for the then-68-year-old.
Amy McHale, Horsch’s ex-wife who went missing about four years later, appeared to testify before the judge. She identified herself as a paralegal of five years and recounted how Horsch had helped get her off the streets doing drugs.
“He helped me get into Peirce College. He supported me in every way he can. I’ve seen him help other girls who were in my position. Even while we were together, you know, sometimes girls would come and stay. And I supported him in that because of how much he helped me,” McHale said.
Marc Rickles, one of Horsch’s two attorneys in the case, recounted his client’s lengthy career as a chemist and an artist, saying he “enhanced society in many ways through his art and science.” He wrote a book on converting whey products into fuel. He helped people in addiction who had “lost their way,” Rickles said.
He and Brown both emphasized Horsch’s advanced age and long medical sheet of health problems, including macular degeneration in his eyes.
“I don’t think you’d see Ray again in a criminal setting,” Rickles said.
Rickles did not respond to a request for comment.
At that point, Horsch had been in federal lockup for three years, with no visitors except his attorneys, according to court testimony. That time, Rickles said, was more than enough.
“He hasn’t been the best dad in the world,” Rickles continued, “and I think he’s seen things that it’s not too late for him to help his son who has some issues who is also a very bright young man.”
Eugene Horsch appeared at the sentencing hearing but did not testify for a medical reason that was redacted in court documents. Eugene Horsch has since been charged with drug and weapons offenses stemming from a chance car stop in July that also revealed he was in possession of a fake ID made out in the name of a missing woman.
Also at the sentencing hearing was Raymond Horsch’s sister, a microbiologist.
Brown said Eugene “went off the deep end” after his father’s arrest in 2009, sinking deeper into drug use. He was locked up for several months on drug charges, according to Brown.
In the transcript, attorneys claim that Horsch was working with the California-based professor and vampire-themed erotic fiction writer Thomas Roche on a documentary project based in Kensington that would focus on women in addiction. Roche did not respond to a request for comment.
It is unclear if the project was ever completed. But two years after the hearing, Horsch unveiled an audio-visual art exhibition at the Paper Mill in Kensington that featured nude photos and video of women who appeared to be injecting heroin.
The exhibit culminated with footage of what Horsch claimed was the corpse of sex a worker who died from an overdose being fed into a crematorium.
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