A jury of six women and six men will soon decide if Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane is guilty of leaking confidential documents to a newspaper, and lying about it to a grand jury.
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Defense Attorney Seth Farber spent an hour and a half trying to convince the jury not to convict his client.
According to court documents, Morrow stuck to his lies about Kane and King at his first two grand jury appearances in late 2014. “You would not even buy a used vehicle from either one of them”.
In a rapid-fire exchange of texts just before 10 p.m. one day in early 2014, Morrow told the embattled Kane: “It’s time for your friends to fight back”.
Kane has said she wasn’t sworn to protect work from the 2009 grand jury probe of an NAACP leader because she was then a stay-at-home mother.
Prosecutors alleged Kane’s quest for revenge took root on March 16, 2014, when she read a Philadelphia Inquirer article that was “critical” of her for failing to pursue criminal charges against some Philadelphia politicians and for shutting down that sting operation which was led by a former state prosecutor, Frank Fina. Prosecutors argued the civil rights official, who was never charged with any crime, was harmed by the release of the grand jury information.
At trial, witnesses testified Kane believed Fina was responsible for the negative publicity. That did not mean, he said, that she authorized a leak of grand jury documents.
The trial has pitted Kane against two former confidants who testified that she leaked grand jury evidence and lied about it under oath.
Kane is accused of leaking grand jury evidence to the press and lying about it under oath.
A top deputy told the jury he was alarmed when he saw the June 2014 article. “Her words”, a prosecutor said in opening statements, nodding to Kane at the defense table. The first woman elected to the post, she publicized hundreds of offensive or mildly pornographic emails that were traded by what she called the “old boys network” of top lawyers and judges in state government.
Farber said Morrow wanted revenge on Fina even more than Kane did.
The defense made the standard motion Friday to dismiss the case for lack of evidence, but Montgomery County Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy found “more than enough direct and circumstantial evidence” to send the case to the jury.
Neither Kane nor her team of defense lawyers commented on their decisions. When he approached Kane, he said, she told him, “Don’t worry about it”. He said Kane knew what documents were in the package. A felony perjury conviction can bring up to seven years in prison.
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Kane’s grand jury testimony was undermined by an executive secretary in the Attorney General’s Office, who came forward to notify prosecutors of a grand jury oath Kane signed and the secretary had notarized. He also testified he lied during multiple interviews by county detectives, all out of loyalty to Kane.
