Something Bad Happened One Night

Darrell Clarke and Nicole Bright

That’s Darrell Clarke.  He’s one of the most powerful men in the city.  My story isn’t about him so much as the weirdness that happened one night on May 2 2013 with the woman he’s hugging in this picture.

That’s his daughter.  Her name is Nicole Bright.

People are going to say all sorts of bad things about Nicole after what I have to say.  And it’s not fair.  She might lose her job because of this.  And it’s not fair.  I don’t think this should be so much about her as about what happened to her and the questions that will come from it.

Nicole was arrested.

Late on April 8 this year in Southwest Philly, Nicole’s boyfriend Jermal Jones got his car shot up.  Hours later police sent a tow truck to get his car and out comes Jermal and he claimed the car.

Detectives interviewed Jermal and he says he parked it in front of a take out and that Nicole Bright is his fiancé.   Did Jermal name-drop Nicole hoping the interview would end?

This report then says that towards the end of April a search and seizure warrant was made on the car and they found 142 grams of cocaine.   Then the police also say that Nicole and Jermal both own the Chevy Camaro.

2010 Chevy Camaro

Jermal also has had gun charges in the past.  He already had a court date set for drugs and a gun charge in May at the time the car was searched.

When Jermal Jones Was Arrested In The Past, Nicole Bright Bailed Him Out

Nicole Bright Was A Co-Defendant with Jermal Jones

Nicole Bright has a PID number with the Police Department: 1137387.

That means she was fingerprinted, photographed and on this affidavit of probable cause, she was co-defendant with Jermal Jones.

Why is Jermal sitting in Graterford and Nicole’s name simply vanished off this case?

Are You Sure You Got The Right Nicole Bright? Are You Sure You’re Sure?

There might be 1,000 Nicole Brights in Philadelphia but there was only one arrested in May who is Darrell Clarke’s daughter.

This is Clarke with his grandson Kadin Jones.

Jermal Jones is the father.

Jermal has been through the courts four times. The first trip was for a robbery charge which he was found not guilty. Somehow he graduated from that in 10 years to a coke dealer without a lot of arrests and cases in between.

Even though this is ten years, this isn’t a lot for someone who is 31 years old in the Philadelphia justice system. Not for a drug dealer.

A lot of people at Southwest Detectives already know all this. They didn’t know when they arrested Jamal Jones that Nicole was Darrell Clarke’s daughter. They had no idea. It wasn’t until after they also arrested her and were in the middle of preparing her did something suddenly stop.

She was released, and that was it.

Jamal Jones is serving 3 to 10 for PWID which is called possession with intent to distribute or drug dealing.

Why was the case stopped?  Did the police make a mistake? Did someone make a phone call? What happened? 

Only a few people know the answer to that.

The sentencing judge recommended SCI Chester in her order so she must have also told Jermal she would try to have him sent there. The state sent Jermal Jones off to Graterford. At least Graterford will be renovated soon by the Commonwealth.

The sentencing was linked to a case from 2011 in the 22nd Police District which is in Fairmount area although the shooting of Jermal’s car happened in Southwest.

I bet Darrell Clarke is glad to be rid of this future son in law for at least the next three years.

Wait, Didn’t You Say Nicole Was Arrested?

She was. You probably didn’t notice in that police summary that Nicole was arrested for anything. Well, the Philadelphia Police definitely did arrest her.

When they took Jermal Jones down and arraigned him they also got Nicole. I know this because I know what this criminal record should be saying. There is a reason why Nicole is mentioned in this summary three times but there is no talk of an arrest.

Nicole was a co-defendant on this case.

Nicole was fingerprinted and a mugshot was taken of her on May 2. Charges against her were prepared and sent to the Charging Unit at the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. What she was going to be charged with will probably not be known. Not unless there is an investigation.

When people are arrested, they sit and wait until the police draw up reports about the case and some basic evidence has been collected. On routine cases they prepare what charges they think they have on you and send the file to the DA’s office to the Charging Unit. From there the final decision is made about your charges after the DA’s office talks to police about what happened and looks at the paperwork the police sent. Then when they are ready for arraignment, with a push of some buttons they file the case with Municipal Court.

Municipal Court is where you are arraigned after there is enough time for you to get a lawyer or if you are poor they assign it to the public defender office. Arraignment is done at the jail over a TV screen and bail is set. Sometimes this happens quickly like a day and for big cases it can take much longer.

When that is done, it turns into a Common Pleas court case and gets a new case file.

Someone stopped this case before it got to arraignment.

Who stopped this case? I don’t know. But I bet Darrell Clarke does.

Why was it stopped? I don’t know. But I bet Darrell Clarke does.

When was it stopped? This happened on May 2 or May 3 of this year.

If you go to the court house and request the file for Jermal Jones you won’t find the original PARS report that the police wrote up which explains exactly what happened.  PARS reports are both on computer and on a paper file and contain what the police’s version of what happened at the time of arrest. They have to do these reports and file them before arraignment happens.

Because Nicole was fingerprinted and photographed and assigned a police tracking number, they were preparing her information to go on to her own case or on to Jermal Jones’s case.