Jury selection in Kane’s trial starts Monday in Montgomery County, where she appeared before a grand jury investigating the leak of 2009 grand jury information about a former NAACP official.
Advertisement
“Prosecutors allege in court documents that Kane directed the release to embarrass former state prosecutors Frank Fina and Marc Costanzo, whom she blamed for providing information for a March 2014 article in The Philadelphia Inquirer that blamed Kane for ending a bribery probe against city Democrats”.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane leaves the courtroom for a short recess on the second day of her trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., Tuesday, August 9, 2016.
Kane is charged with perjury, a felony, for allegedly lying to the grand jury, and eight misdemeanor counts that include obstruction, official oppression, conspiracy and false swearing.
During the selection process prospective jurors were able to pore over a two-page list of more than two dozen potential trial witnesses that included: former and current employees of the Office of Attorney General; county Judge William R. Carpenter, who supervised the grand jury that investigated Kane; Thomas Carluccio, the special prosecutor appointed by Carpenter to oversee the grand jury; Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams; and Patrick Rocco Reese, a member of Kane’s security detail who was convicted of contempt previous year in connection with accessing email messages related to the grand jury that was investigating Kane for alleged grand jury leaks.
Assistant prosecutor Michelle Henry previewed her case, using the word, “revenge” more than 20 times. She is accused of illegally leaking secret grand jury information and lying about it under oath, Philly.com reported.
Kane is being supported in the courtroom by her family – including her parents and sister who is also now a prosecutor in the state attorney generals office.
Trial evidence shows that Pennsylvania’s attorney general told a grand jury she never leaked secret documents to the press.
The defense tells jurors in opening statements Tuesday that Kane wouldn’t have risked her career over a fued with Fina. “She broke the laws when her job was to uphold them”, Henry said, gesturing toward the attorney general. In fact, she “never had access to those documents”, Shargel said.
“Attorney General Kane violated no law and committed no crime”.
Angered by a newspaper article critical of her decision to drop a corruption case, Kane chose to make her foe, former state prosecutor Frank Fina, look bad by leaking information about another case he had not pursued.
The jury of six men and six women will be asked to pick a side at the conclusion of Kane’s roughly one-week perjury trial that began in earnest Tuesday in Norristown.
“She made some mistakes”, Shargel said.
Lawyers questioned 100 potential jurors behind closed doors Monday at the suburban Philadelphia courthouse. “She did it with revenge and she covered it up with lies” Henry said. Morrow had already given the grand jury materials to the reporter, Henry said.
This investigation turned up the signed oath by Kane. The oath compelled Kane to maintain the secrecy of all matters occurring before past and present statewide grand juries, prosecutors alleged.
Kane’s defense attorneys say she wanted information about a criminal investigation revealed to the public, but did not authorize the illegal ak herself. The subsequent story proved embarrassing to the subject of the Fina-led grand jury investigation: J. Whyatt Mondesire, an NAACP leader in Philadelphia. “I viewed it as quite problematic”.
Advertisement
Today:Bruce Beemer, who served as first deputy, retakes the stand and will be followed by other prosecution witnesses.
