J-S19008-20

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

NICHOLAS DUPREE 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 467 EDA 2019

Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered January 29, 2019

In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at 

No(s): CP-51-CR-0000172-2010

BEFORE: BOWES, J., McCAFFERY, J., and MUSMANNO, J.

MEMORANDUM BY BOWES, J.: FILED JUNE 08, 2020

Nicholas Dupree appeals pro se from the order that dismissed his 

petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”). We affirm.

The PCRA court summarized the facts and procedural history of this case 

as follows:

Appellant perpetrated several acts of sexual misconduct 

upon his then nine[-]year[-]old biological daughter, N.D. 

Previously, in 2007, Appellant pled guilty to simple assault for 

conduct of sexually inappropriate behavior against the same child 

when she was six years old. In the instant case, N.D. gave a 

detailed account of four incidents which occurred in 2009 where 

Appellant engaged in conduct such as licking her private parts, 

placing his fingers in her anus, and ejaculating in her mouth. He

also had the child perform oral sex on him. On one occasion 

Appellant had N.D. enter a room where she found him naked and 

masturbating. After the sexual encounters, Appellant gave N.D. 

money and admonished her not to tell. Eventually N.D. disclosed 

to her grandmother who tried to reach the child’s mother, 

Taneisha Sowell, but was unsuccessful in doing so for a period of 

time. Once contacted, the mother filed a police report the 

following day. 
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When Sowell confronted Appellant about the allegations, he 

denied them. Later, Appellant through Sowell sent a letter to N.D. 

stating, inter alia, that he was ‘sorry for all the wrongs’ he had 

done and promised to ‘make up for everything.’ A second letter 

from Appellant to N.D. stated that he was sorry for his conduct 

and asked for forgiveness. 

At trial, Appellant denied the allegations, testifying that he 

was never alone with N.D. after the simple assault plea, and that 

Sowell bribed N.D. to lie because he refused to renew their 

relationship. Evidence of Sowell’s prison visits to Appellant, along 

with text messages and letters between the two were introduced.

. . . .

On November 23, 2009 Appellant was arrested and charged 

with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, incest, corruption of 

minors, and aggravated indecent assault and on September 14, 

2012, following a jury trial before this court, he was found guilty 

of those crimes. On May 13, 2013 Appellant was sentenced to a 

lengthy term of incarceration followed by probation. On May 22, 

2013 Appellant filed a motion for reconsideration and the motion 

was denied. Appellant filed an appeal on June 3, 2013. On July 

29, 2014 judgement of sentence was affirmed by the Superior 

Court of Pennsylvania. Appellant’s timely pro se [PCRA petition] 

was filed on July 27, 2015. PCRA counsel was appointed and 

entered appearance on September 1, 2016. A Grazier[1] hearing 

was held December 21, 2016 granting Appellant’s motion to 

proceed pro se. Thereafter, Appellant filed an amended pro se

petition on February 23, 2017 and a supplemental amended 

petition on July 24,2018. PCRA relief was denied without a 

hearing with formal dismissal on January 29, 2019. This timely 

appeal followed on February 5, 2019.

PCRA Court Opinion, 6/13/19, at 2-3, 1 (citations, unnecessary capitalization, 

and repetition of amounts in numerical form omitted). 

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1 See Commonwealth v. Grazier, 713 A.2d 81, 82 (Pa. 1998) (“When a 

waiver of the right to counsel is sought at the post-conviction and appellate 

stages, an on-the-record determination should be made that the waiver is a 

knowing, intelligent, and voluntary one.”). 
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Appellant presents the following question for this Court’s review:

The inferior court has abdicated its responsibility to prevent the 

triumph of fraud, and, where a judgment has been obligated by 

fraud, it permitted its own records and processes to be the 

instruments of infamy. Appellant being confined under a void 

judgment procured by fraud is entitled to an unconditional 

discharge and equitable relief by operation of the Due Process 

Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, ‒and on the principle that 

“fraud vitiates everything it touches.” Sallada v. Mock, 121 A. 

54, 55 (1923). Accord Brittain v. Hope Enters., 163 A.3d 1029 

(2017) (quoting Sallada v. Mock, 121 A. 54, 55 (1923)). Accord 

Commonwealth v. Harper, 890 A.2d 1078, 1082 (2006); 

Hazel-Atlas Glass Co. v. Hartford-Empire Co., 322 U.S. 238, 

64 S. Ct. 997, 88 L. Ed. 1250 (1944); Herring v. United States, 

424 F.3d 384, 390 (3d Cir. 2005).

Appellant’s brief at 4.

We begin with the principles pertinent to our review. “Our standard of 

review regarding a PCRA court’s order is whether the determination of the 

PCRA court is supported by the evidence of record and is free of legal error. 

The PCRA court’s findings will not be disturbed unless there is no support for 

the findings in the certified record.” Commonwealth v. Garcia, 23 A.3d 

1059, 1061 (Pa.Super. 2011). Further, “[i]t is an appellant’s burden to 

persuade us that the PCRA court erred and that relief is due.” 

Commonwealth v. Miner, 44 A.3d 684, 688 (Pa.Super. 2012). 

While Appellant pled an array of claims in the PCRA court, the only one 

he raises in his statement of questions to this Court is his allegation that the 

trial court lacked jurisdiction over the underlying case because the charging 

instrument was signed by someone without authority to do so. Specifically, 
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Appellant pursues the claim raised in his supplemental PCRA petition that the 

bill of information initiating his case was signed by someone who did not work 

for the district attorney’s office at the time he was charged. See Motion to 

Supplement Petition, 7/24/18, at 3-7. See also Appellant’s brief at 21-28. 

The PCRA court addressed this claim as follows:

The primary thrust of Appellant’s complaints center about 

his misguided belief that the bills of information are fraudulent 

thereby negating the court’s jurisdiction over him; and, that

anything or anyone related to those documents are engaged in a 

fraudulent conspiracy to deprive him of due process. This is a 

bogus, unfounded claim.

Appellant seeks to benefit from the resignation of Seth 

Williams as Philadelphia. District Attorney and his subsequent 

2017 criminal conviction in federal court. At the time of

Appellant’s arrest in 2009, throughout trial and sentencing in 

2013, Williams was the Philadelphia District Attorney. The 

Commonwealth has supplied a copy of the original bills of 

information signature page bearing William’s signature dated 

1/20/2010.

When Williams resigned as Philadelphia District Attorney in 

June 2017, Kathleen Martin held the position of First Assistant 

District Attorney, and as such, rightfully assumed his duties until 

an Interim District Attorney was appointed by the First Judicial 

Common Pleas Court Judges. Kelly B. Hodge was appointed to 

the interim position in July 2017. The bills of information 

generated for Appellant at his request in 2017 bore Martin’s 

signature for which the Commonwealth offered an explanation.[2]

There was no forgery; there was no fraud.

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2 Specifically, the Commonwealth offered the following explanation:

[T]hese signatures are regenerated at the time they are accessed 

and reprinted. Here, in defendant’s supplemental petition, he

attaches a copy of the bills of information that have a “date 

printed” timestamp of “08/16/2017,” which would coincide with 
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Here, Williams’s signature was on the original charging 

document. Moreover, Martin’s signature on documents generated 

during her time as acting district attorney would be valid. The

laws of Pennsylvania, address precisely this situation for counties 

of the first class, such as Philadelphia:

16. P.S. § 7723 - The District attorney shall have the 

power to designate and appoint one of the assistant 

district attorneys, herein provided for, as his first 

assistant, who shall, in the absence of the district 

attorney from the jurisdiction or during his disability 

to perform the duties of his office through sickness or 

other cause, be vested with all the duties, powers, and 

privileges now given by law to the district attorney, 

and generally, at such times, be empowered to do and 

perform all things in connection with his office which 

the district attorney may be law be entitled to do or 

perform. 

Appellant is not entitled to relief based on this speculative 

claim. Error was not committed.

PCRA Court Opinion, 6/13/19, at 3-4 (unnecessary capitalization omitted).

In this Court, Appellant persists in contending that the copy of the 

document printed in 2017 that automatically incorporated the signature of the 

person then acting as District Attorney was the same one that initiated his 

case in 2010. His only acknowledgment of the Commonwealth’s explanation, 

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the period of time that Ms. Martin served as acting District 

Attorney of Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. Located in the 

Commonwealth’s trial file are the bills of information dated 

“1/20/2010,” and on that document is then District Attorney Seth 

Williams’s signature. 

Commonwealth Letter Brief, 9/11/18, at 2-3 (citations omitted). The 

Commonwealth’s filing included a copy of the original 2010 bill of information 

signed by Mr. Williams. See id. at Exhibit A.
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accepted by the PCRA court, is that the PCRA “court’s assessment of the facts 

(below) includes unsupported argument; is self-contradicting, and is based on 

personal knowledge of disputed facts, and information conveyed through ‘ex 

parte communications’ (outside of any record or proceeding in the case) . . . .” 

Appellant’s brief at 17 n.11. However, the information relied upon by the 

PCRA court clearly was not ex parte, as it is filed of record and was served 

upon Appellant. 

In our review of the record, the PCRA court opinion, and the parties’ 

briefs, we conclude that the PCRA court’s determinations are supported by the 

record and free of legal error. Accordingly, Appellant has failed to convince 

us that relief is due.

Order affirmed. 

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 6/8/20