The Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office on Monday served a search warrant on the City of Pittsburgh, TribLive has learned.
What is being sought is unclear, as is the scope of the DA’s investigation.
The warrant has been sealed for 60 days, according to the DA’s office.
First Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Spangler on Tuesday confirmed the existence of the search warrant as well as the 60-day seal.
She refused to provide TribLive with any of the paperwork associated with the search warrant, including the affidavit, a sworn statement explaining the nature of the investigation.
It is not known whether longtime District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. is seeking records and information pertaining to the administration of Pittsburgh’s new mayor, Corey O’Connor, his predecessor, Ed Gainey, both fellow Democrats, or something else.
When pressed why the warrant was sealed, Spangler said it was for “good cause” and declined further comment other than to acknowledge its existence.
City officials this week refused to discuss the warrant, which was quietly served Monday to little fanfare.
“The city can’t comment on any investigations but we’ll always cooperate on any court orders we receive,” Dan Gilman, O’Connor’s chief of staff, told TribLive Monday.
He repeatedly declined to provide TribLive copies of any paperwork provided to the city by Zappala’s staff.
O’Connor referred TribLive to Gilman’s comments.
Solicitor Lisa Zeidner Marcus, a former trial lawyer with the U.S. Justice Department, on Tuesday said through a spokesperson she could not comment on the investigation and directed TribLive to the DA’s office for the list of items to be seized.
In other instances, search warrants have been executed on public officials in Southwestern Pennsylvania fully in the public eye, occasionally with media watching, but this instance appears to be a decidedly low-profile affair being carried out behind the scenes.
The search warrant comes just a month before Pittsburgh will be in the national spotlight as the 2026 NFL Draft comes to town, along with hundreds of thousands of visitors, in late April.
Spending concerns
This is not the first time Zappala has investigated the City of Pittsburgh in recent years.
In 2024, the DA’s office launched an investigation into alleged misuse of a city credit card under the Gainey administration and executed a search warrant on the city that August.
An affidavit supporting that search warrant alleged a former contractor was “improperly” paid with a municipal credit card and criticized city officials for not cooperating with the DA’s office.
According to that affidavit, the DA’s office was initially denied access to materials officials were seeking from the city’s Office of Municipal Investigations, which handled an internal probe into the issue.
The affidavit alleged that records maintained by that office “are evidence of criminal activity,” but did not clarify whether the reference to criminal activity was general or specific to that situation.
Then-Department of Parks & Recreation Director Kathryn Vargas authorized more than $20,000 in credit card payments to a contractor who had been fired from another position.
Controller Rachael Heisler and some City Council members raised concerns that paying that contractor, Mario Ashkar, violated city policies governing the use of city credit cards, known as p-cards.
Jake Pawlak, who led the Office of Management and Budget and served as Gainey’s top advisor, said the internal probe revealed the payments violated city policies governing how much the city can spend on a single vendor through credit cards.
No charges were ever filed stemming from the DA’s investigation into the credit card use.
Then last year, council strengthened oversight of the Stop the Violence Fund, after officials raised concerns.
The program funds the city’s Office of Community Health and Safety and provides grants to community groups dedicated to curbing violent crime.
Each year, the city allocates up to $10 million — though that figure was reduced to $5 million this year because of a budget crunch — to the fund.
