Kane testifies before statewide grand jury

MOMENTS BEFORE testifying in front of a grand jury investigating leaks to the media, state Attorney General Kathleen Kane said yesterday that her office did nothing wrong when it released information about a 2009 grand-jury probe.

Kane, who read from a prepared statement outside the Montgomery County office building where she was to testify, said "continuous" and "overlapping" court orders have forced her to remain silent on matters that she's wanted to air. She said her grand-jury testimony would be the first time she could respond to allegations that her office disclosed sealed grand-jury information to the Daily News in the spring regarding a 2009 investigation into former NAACP chief J. Whyatt Mondesire.

"These court orders also expose me to legal risk if I do my job as attorney general that I was elected and trusted by the people of Pennsylvania to do," she said. "I will tell the special prosecutor the truth and the facts surrounding the disclosure of information to the public that was done in a way that did not violate statutory or case law regarding grand-jury secrecy."

The Daily News report laid out how Kane was reviewing a 2009 grand-jury investigation of Mondesire, who had been investigated by prosecutors when Gov. Corbett was attorney general. The inquiry was headed by Frank Fina, a former prosecutor who now works for District Attorney Seth Williams and has been at odds with Kane over how cases are handled.

Yesterday was the first time Kane appeared before the grand jury to testify, after being subpoenaed twice. The first time she failed to appear because of a scheduling conflict. The second time was because she was recovering from head, neck and back injuries suffered during a car accident four weeks ago in Lackawanna County, near her home.

Kane was accompanied yesterday by high-profile attorneys - Gerald Shargel, a New York criminal-defense lawyer, and former White House aide Lanny Davis, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer who defended the Penn State Board of Trustees during the Jerry Sandusky trial and served as an adviser to President Bill Clinton.

There is speculation that Kane is being stopped from publicly identifying Fina, who some say was behind the dissemination of hundreds of sexually explicit emails that were exchanged by members of Corbett's staff and later discovered by Kane's office.

"The very fact that she's not allowed to answer your questions as to who's abusing the system is what she would say is outrageous and what's wrong with the system - the absence of transparency - and that's what she is challenging," Davis said.

"She absolutely is convinced, as is her lawyers, including myself, that this is not grand-jury information, not subject to the grand-jury secrecy act, either in case law or in statutory law."

Davis said Kane had no plans to invoke her Fifth Amendment right because "the truth is her best defense."