Charles Peruto. (Screen capture via YouTube)
Philadelphia’s only Republican candidate for district attorney, Charles Peruto, vowed to go after “gay-bashing” by appointing “macho” prosecutors.
Tearing up the polished playbook, Peruto has opted for a more candid campaign website as he seeks to win support in the blue city.
While running unopposed in the GOP primary, his website saw a promise to appoint a special-full time prosecutor “who looks as opposite of gay you can imagine”.
In a since-deleted section headlined “Gay Bashing“, the criminal defence attorney wrote that “gay bashing will not be tolerated under my administration”.
Just got off the phone with Philly’s Republican DA candidate Chuck Peruto to about his “gay bashing” proposal that got some heat over the weekend.
Peruto took this bit his website, but he doubled down on the idea that only a “macho” prosecutor should try LGBTQ hate crimes. pic.twitter.com/QbItr9ePBp
— Max M. Marin (@MaxMMarin) May 10, 2021
“Having tried some 300 jury trials, I know what it takes to win them,” he explained.
“It would not be my preference to have a prosecutor who would be remotely perceived as gay arguing these cases before a jury.
“I would assign an older, seasoned prosecutor who looks as opposite of gay you can imagine” to deal with “nothing but this problem”.
“That is the type of assistant district attorney that can persuade the most conservative jurors to understand this problem that is unique to the gay community,” he concluded.
Er, OK.
“When you have a very effeminate male prosecutor, it could possibly be perceived that the prosecutor is going after the defendants because he’s gay,” Peruto told BillyPenn, a local news outlet.
“I want to make sure we have a very macho prosecutor to defend the rights of gay people to live in harmony and in peace.”
Asked why he took the section down, he said: “The public’s not ready, it’s too controversial.”
But the bizarre pledge wasn’t the only part of his website that drew double-takes. He also carved out a significant amount to the accidental death of a paralegal and his paramour.
The section entitled “The Girl in my Bathtub” sees Peruto address the death of 26-year-old Julia Law, whose body was found in a bathtub in his luxury condominium in 2013. Police concluded that she likely drowned in the tub following a seizure.
The two had been dating for around a month and a half and Peruto was cleared of any wrongdoing after a grand jury investigation. It’s a story, he said, that “some people will not let go away”.
He explained how the investigation was launched by “a bitter enemy”, district attorney Seth William.
“Instead of me hiding and refusing to give a statement or explaining myself, I took to Facebook, and called him every name in the book,” Peruto wrote.
“At one point, I actually offered to fight him in front of the District Attorney’s Office with his three police guards observing.”
