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Kane is held for trial amid talk of porn emails

State Attorney General Kathleen Kane will stand trial on perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges, a judge ruled yesterday.

Embattled Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane walks into courtroom B at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown for a preliminary hearing on perjury, false swearing and obstruction of justice charges.   ( CLEM MURRAY / Staff Photographer )
Embattled Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane walks into courtroom B at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown for a preliminary hearing on perjury, false swearing and obstruction of justice charges. ( CLEM MURRAY / Staff Photographer )Read more

THE PRELIMINARY hearing for state Attorney General Kathleen Kane was nearly overshadowed yesterday by a single sentence about pornography.

This is Pennsylvania, after all.

Montgomery County Magisterial District Judge Cathleen Kelly Rebar ordered Kane to be held for trial on charges of perjury, criminal conspiracy and obstruction of justice, fallout from a bizarre scandal that has threatened to topple the attorney general's career.

Kane is accused of orchestrating the leak information about a dormant 2009 grand jury investigation into J. Whyatt Mondesire, the then-head of the Philadelphia NAACP, to the Daily News.

A story about the case appeared in the paper last June, a few months after the Inquirer wrote about Kane's decision to not prosecute a handful of local lawmakers who were caught accepting bribes from a lobbyist as part of an undercover sting.

Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman, while announcing the charges against Kane earlier this month, said Kane blamed the Inquirer story on Frank Fina, a prosecutor who left the Attorney General's Office shortly after she was sworn into office. Kane's alleged revenge was leaking the information about the Mondesire case to the Daily News.

It's convoluted stuff, to be sure, but prosecutors Kevin Steele and Michelle Henry laid out their case matter-of-factly.

David Peifer, a special agent in charge of the Bureau of Special Investigations for the Attorney General's Office, testified that he briefed Kane and others in her inner circle about the Mondesire case during a meeting in Harrisburg in March 2014.

Peifer said he left crucial information about the case - documents, statements and a memo - with Kane. He said Kane called him a month after the Daily News story was published, and asked him to send her a copy.

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. If Kane really wanted to embarrass him, she could have made public Fina's "pornography collection of thousands and thousands" of emails and images, along with numerous "disgraceful" and racially charged jokes, he said.

But Montgomery County Detective Paul Bradbury testified that Kane's former campaign consultant, Josh Morrow, recalled getting a call from Kane in April 2014, asking him to do her a favor.

Morrow told Bradbury that he went to the home of Adrian King, Kane's first deputy, and picked up a package that contained information about the grand jury investigation into Mondesire. Morrow said he gave the material to then-Daily News reporter Chris Brennan.

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. He also insisted that Mondesire's reputation had been tarnished by other news stories long before the Daily News wrote about the grand jury case.

Kane is scheduled to be arraigned Oct. 14 in Montgomery County.

At a news conference after the hearing, Shargel was bombarded with questions about Fina's alleged collection of porn emails.

"The point was . . . the entire story hasn't come out yet," he said. "I think a little more of the story evolved today, a little too slow for my taste. But we're looking forward to the trial."