Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal is no stranger to controversy. Since taking the role in 2020, her office has seen backlash after it used fake ai-generated headlines for positive “news” stories on its website. Concerns were also raised after guns were reported missing from her office, and , most recently, a judge ordered a review of her office’s real estate procedures after property buyers complained of delays lasting as long as a year. And, recently, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that her office misplaced $20 million of taxpayer funds, and, apparently, reneged on an agreement to address the delays in the disbursement of sheriff’s sale funds. On Thursday, Bilal hosted a press event to address these concerns, in which she spent the majority of her time at the podium refuting claims made in the Philadelphia Inquirer’s coverage of court proceedings involving her office. Bilal argued that her office never reneged on any deal — instead she had simply proposed changes to the deal — and claimed the Inquirer “ignored” her office’s changes because of an ongoing feud over advertising sales. “The Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office never reneged on any agreement,” she said. In offering to support her argument, Bilal released a revised copy of the proposal, showing her office’s revisions to the document. However, Bilal claimed these changes were rejected. Also, as detailed by the Inquirer, Bilal’s office could be held in contempt of court after not turning over records that were requested earlier this year. On the city’s largest newspaper’s coverage of the court proceedings on this proposal, Bilal claimed that the paper “has an agenda” and said it has shared “misinformation” and was “twisting the narrative” regarding her office since she changed how her office advertises sheriff’s sales. “This has been constant and it has happened since we changed our advertising structure,” claimed Bilal. On the $20 million in sheriff’s sale proceeds that her office reportedly misplaced, Steven Wakefield, the offices’ senior deputy undersheriff, said the money was never missing and was tied up in a final payment process. “These funds were not missing,” said Wakefield. Instead, he said the millions, from September to December of 2025, were waiting to be dispersed but “had not completed the final payment steps.” “When our new real estate management department identified these outstanding transactions through our internal reviews, we immediately began taking corrective action,” he said. This “corrective action” was still ongoing, according to Wakefield. In discussing how the money went missing in the first place, Bilal argued that she is still working to address issues that have existed at her office since she was elected. “Those challenges [have] been there way before me,” she said. “Are there areas where we should improve? Yes. And, we are addressing them.” Through the recent judge’s order, an independent reviewer was expected to examine procedures in Bilal’s office, ask questions and potentially make recommendations over the course of six months. When the order was handed down in August, Bilal said her office already made changes to address the delays and defended her office’s ability to manage the deed process. Buyers have complained that deeds can take up to a year to arrive instead of a couple of months. NBC10 reached out to the Philadelphia Inquirer for a response to Bilal’s press event. We will include a statement once we receive one. This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. ...read more read less