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Baer: The porn case you couldn't make up

Politics, irony make Pa.'s scandal border on the world of fiction.

This photo provided by the Sundance Institute shows Jerry Sandusky, center, in the documentary film, "Happy Valley," by director Amir Bar-Lev. The Sundance Film Festival runs Jan. 16-26, 2014, in Park City, Utah.  (AP Photo/Sundance Institute, Asylum Entertainment)
This photo provided by the Sundance Institute shows Jerry Sandusky, center, in the documentary film, "Happy Valley," by director Amir Bar-Lev. The Sundance Film Festival runs Jan. 16-26, 2014, in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Sundance Institute, Asylum Entertainment)Read moreAP

IT HAS perversion, stupidity and eddies of irony, and it's spreading like an STD.

I refer, of course, to Pennsylvania's high-profile porno scandal.

So far, it's X'ed a Cabinet member, Environmental Secretary Christopher Abruzzo, and his deputy counsel, Glenn Parno (that's Parno, not porno), both of whom resigned last week.

It ensnared a member of the state Board of Probation and Parole, Randy Feathers, who was asked to resign but refuses, and whose first name, given the issue, all but demands the observation that "you can't make this stuff up."

It's brushed a state Supreme Court justice, Seamus McCaffery, and the head of the state Gaming Control Board, William Ryan Jr.

It touched State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan, who tells Gov. Corbett that he never opened any of 300-plus e-porn gifts received.

I'd note that Noonan apparently also never told Corbett he received them - this while chief of the criminal division in Corbett's Office of Attorney General, where all these men but McCaffery worked.

I don't know. To me, a prodigious smut-swap among prosecutors under an elected attorney general likely to run for higher office might be something that someone brings to the boss' attention.

Especially since another someone receiving porn was Corbett's longtime aide, communications chief Kevin Harley.

What? It never occurred to the brain trust of an agency that often prosecutes on the basis of email evidence that this might not be a good idea?

But let's look beyond a focus on individual judgment, salaciousness or revulsion over raunchy videos, locker-room banter and misogynistic photos.

Most reaction is, "Oh, some men watched porn at work, so what?" Or, "Men are pigs." Or, "Harrisburg's a sad, soulless outpost of waste and degradation."

All these reactions have merit.

Yet, the story has linkage and irony involving politics and the Jerry Sandusky case (which, when the story broke, I told colleagues we'd write about in some way for the rest of our days).

Lots of email porn was circulated among high-ranking prosecutors and executives in the Office of Attorney General, 2008 to 2012.

This while the office was run by Corbett, the aforementioned Ryan and Linda Kelly, and was busy with cases against lawmakers and Sandusky.

Without Sandusky, there's no porn scandal.

Democratic Attorney General Kathleen Kane won office politicizing Republican Corbett's handling of Sandusky, which involved those in the porn network.

The porn came to light after millions of deleted emails were recovered during Kane's review of Sandusky. No review, no proof of porn.

The irony?

During this period, top lawmakers went to prison - including former House speakers, Democrat Bill DeWeese and Republican John Perzel; former House whips, Democrat Mike Veon and Republican Brett Feese - for, among other things, "theft of services": In this case, using government resources for politics.

The agency that pursued, charged and prosecuted them, often on the basis of email evidence, is the same agency whose top officials were pushing email porn.

Watching porn isn't a crime. Watching at work on government computers is merely a violation of policy. But could using government computers and email for porn instead of politics be considered theft of services?

And if all the time and use were added up, might it reach the theft-of-services felony threshold of $2,000?

Also, Frank Fina, a lead prosecutor on Sandusky and cases against lawmakers, who now works for Philly District Attorney Seth Williams, went to court to prevent release of emails.

Need a map?

And it's Williams' office that now has a sting case, once led by Fina, that caught four Philly lawmakers taking cash on tape and that Kane called too botched to prosecute.

So, we have a vortex of politics, porn and paybacks. And further proof that in Pennsylvania there's no need to make stuff up.

Blog: ph.ly/BaerGrowls

Columns: ph.ly/JohnBaer