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Kane fingerprinted, arraigned on 8 counts by Montco judge

Appearing publicly for the first time since she was criminally charged Thursday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane on Saturday walked into the Montgomery County detective bureau in Norristown to be fingerprinted and then was arraigned via video conference by a judge in Collegeville.

Attorney General Kathleen Kane appears in Norristown for her arraignment Saturday afternoon, her first public appearance since being criminally charged Thursday. (DAVID SWANSON/Staff Photographer)
Attorney General Kathleen Kane appears in Norristown for her arraignment Saturday afternoon, her first public appearance since being criminally charged Thursday. (DAVID SWANSON/Staff Photographer)Read more

Appearing publicly for the first time since she was criminally charged Thursday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane on Saturday walked into the Montgomery County detective bureau in Norristown to be fingerprinted and then was arraigned via video conference by a judge in Collegeville.

Magisterial Judge Cathleen Kelly Rebar set bail at $10,000 unsecured, which meant Kane was allowed to freely depart the Norristown bureau. She left the building through a side door after entering through the front door, and in both cases declined to answer questions from reporters.

Kane said little during the brief hearing, offering one-word answers to Rebar's questions about whether she understood her rights. She entered no plea.

Rebar scheduled a preliminary hearing for Aug. 24.

Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman on Thursday filed eight criminal charges against Kane - one felony and seven misdemeanors - saying she violated grand jury secrecy and then lied about it under oath.

Kane attorney Ross Kramer said Saturday that Kane was innocent and that she had no plans to resign from the office she was elected to in 2012. Kramer said Kane was confident she would be exonerated as more evidence emerged.

"We think that the charges tell only a very small part of the story in this case," he said. "We think that as people get a full sense of what the story is . . . the narrative will look very different than it does right now."

He also described the prosecutors' charging document as "slanted" and said, "There are other parts of the story, and the way we tell this story from Attorney General Kane's side will come out as this case goes along."

Kevin Steele, first assistant district attorney in Montgomery County, declined to respond to that assertion, saying only, "Our job going forward here is to do justice and bring truth out in a courtroom."

Before the arraignment in Collegeville, Rebar, a Republican, told reporters assembled in the courtroom that she would not turn the video monitor to face them, because it was standard in her courtroom for the screen to face the judge.

"We don't do it that way," she said. "I'm not going to make an exception here. . . . This is the way it's going to be."

Reporters representing several newspapers, including The Inquirer, attempted to make on-the-record objections about the policy, but Rebar interrupted and said she would not place the objections on the record. No court reporter was present.

"This is a court of no record," Rebar said.

The charges and controversy swirling around Kane have prompted several elected officials - including Gov. Wolf and leaders from both parties of the state House - to urge Kane to resign.

The attorney general said in a statement during the week that she would not step down.

The charges against her stem from allegations that she leaked confidential grand jury material to a newspaper reporter, then lied about it under oath, all while deploying aides as spies to stay ahead of the developing criminal investigation.

She faces one felony count of perjury. She faces seven misdemeanor counts, including one alleging false swearing, and several alleging official oppression and obstruction.

One of Kane's aides, Patrick Reese, the head of her security detail, was also charged in the case, accused of carrying out the illegal surveillance. He faces one count of contempt of court, a misdemeanor. His arraignment could be on Tuesday, according to Steele.

Ferman announced the charges at a news conference Thursday.

"No one is above the law," said Ferman, who was tasked with investigating potential charges after a statewide grand jury recommended them last year.

In a 42-page affidavit of probable cause, prosecutors painted a deeply negative picture of Kane, portraying her as a prosecutor consumed by fights with people she perceived as enemies, and eager to spy on a laundry list of targets - judges, reporters, prosecutors, even her own aides.

"This is war," she wrote in an e-mail, according to the affidavit, as she allegedly prepared to leak a damaging story about a rival prosecutor, Frank Fina, to the Philadelphia Daily News.

Kane believed Fina to be behind an earlier article, published in The Inquirer, which detailed how Kane had declined to prosecute a sting investigation that captured Democratic officials on tape accepting bribes.

When a criminal investigation into Kane developed surrounding the materials she leaked to the Daily News, the affidavit said, Kane sought to impede its progress - and also threatened to fire top staffers if they opposed her.

She also sought damaging information on perceived opponents, the affidavit said, including Fina and his new boss, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, who had taken up the sting case and spoken out publicly against Kane.

Gov. Wolf on Thursday called on Kane to resign just hours after the charges were announced, saying he did not believe she could continue in her role while also mounting a defense. On Friday, leaders from both parties in the state House followed suit.

Senate leaders have so far declined to call specifically for Kane's resignation.

The Attorney General's Office has long had a policy that requires the suspension without pay of any employee charged with a felony. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review first reported that on Friday. And while Kane faces the felony perjury count, her spokesman, Chuck Ardo, said Friday that the policy applies only to employees, not to the attorney general as an elected official.

Kramer, Kane's attorney, acknowledged Saturday that the investigation had created a difficult work environment within the office.

"But they've made it work," he said, "and they'll continue to make it work."

INSIDE

The Kane legal drama has the makings of a very bad film. Mike Newall, B1.

Is corruption endemic to the region? A17.

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