Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane used her twin sister as a media decoy while she entered court Monday for a preliminary hearing on charges of criminal obstruction relating to leaked grand jury information.
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Kane was held for trial on all charges following a preliminary hearing Monday in Montgomery County. She says she is innocent and has accused her enemies of prosecuting her to hide their involvement in a pornographic e-mail scandal that rocked the state last fall.
A perjury conviction alone could land Kane in prison for up to seven years.
Defense attorney Gerald Shargel scoffed at the idea of the attorney general using information about an old grand jury case to exact revenge on Fina.
“I’m calling for the full story to come out”. “No experienced lawyer would have had the expectation that the case would be dismissed at this proceeding because I think that all of you heard in exquisite detail in what you’re no entitled to do at a preliminary hearing in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania”.
When a grand jury began looking at Kane’s alleged leak to the Daily News, Kane, the documents say, gave two confidants permission to snoop in electronic grand jury records to see which members of her staff were testifying.
No trial date has been set. Kane’s attorney expects her to be acquitted once this goes to trial. Steele declined to say whether Peifer testified under a grant of immunity.
“For only a grand jury protective order stands in the way of my releasing their names and their emails to the public”, Kane said in a prepared statement. She has vowed to stay in workplace.
Detective Paul Bradbury, who investigated Kane, stated the leak prompted Mondesire “nice private misery and misery to his household” and compelled him to shut his charity when donations dried up after the newspaper story.
She also claimed during that press conference that she was not allowed to release those emails – which she characterized as pornographic, racist and skewering some religions – due to a cloak of grand jury secrecy.
Shargel butted heads with Judge Rebar throughout the hearing, complaining that the defense team hadn’t had time to properly review the information that Bradbury referenced.
Peifer detailed discussions he had with Kane regarding an interview he conducted in 2014 of one of the agents that worked on the 2009 grand jury investigation of J. Whyatt Mondesire of Philadelphia.
Kane did not comment to reporters as she headed to the courtroom.
Most of Monday’s testimony flowed directly from the heart of the 42-page affidavit of probabe cause filed against the embattled Attorney General on August 6.
In retribution, according to the district attorney’s office, Kane allegedly leaked secret information from the 2009 grand jury, the criminal complaint said.
Bradbury said investigators had not checked for fingerprints.
Kane’s nearly identical sister walked in ahead of her, wearing her hair up, as they approached a swarm of media, some of whom got duped into thinking it was her. Kane walked in quickly behind wearing a red dress and her hair down.
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After entering the courtroom many photographers griped about only getting shots of her twin sister.
