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Kane to Seth: You want more porn? OK

AG Kathleen Kane tells DA Seth Williams “hundreds” of offensive emails are on the way. Maybe.

State Attorney General Kathleen Kane and Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams.
State Attorney General Kathleen Kane and Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams.Read moreFile photos

YOU WANT more porn, Seth? Oh, you're gonna get more porn.

Maybe.

So says a forthcoming communique from state Attorney General Kathleen Kane in response to Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams' latest attempts to navigate the escalating Porngate scandal that threatens to quash his political ambitions.

City Council, local women's groups and others have been pressuring Williams in recent weeks to fire three prosecutors - Frank Fina, Marc Costanzo and Patrick Blessington - who sent or received racist, pornographic or otherwise inappropriate emails while working for the state Attorney General's Office.

Williams decided in September to discipline them with one day of "sensitivity training" - which they finally attended last month - but he also recently reassigned them to lower-profile units within his office.

Now, Williams has shifted course, going on a mini-PR blitz to say that he didn't know about all the emails the trio sent or received. He is calling on Kane to release all of the offensive emails that she found on her office's servers during a review of how her predecessor, Tom Corbett, handled the Jerry Sandusky sex-abuse case.

"I am personally saying mea culpa," Williams said in an Inquirer story published yesterday. "I needed all the evidence, and I didn't have it. And we need all of it, to restore the public's trust across this commonwealth."

Kane, in a letter she's expected to send Williams today, says she has "hundreds of offensive emails circulated in a network that includes" Fina, Costanzo and Blessington. She said she will "immediately release these emails to the public" - as long as Williams assures her that it would not violate a grand-jury protective order tied to a corruption case that Kane dismissed and Williams later prosecuted.

"Had you simply asked for these emails during your investigation, I assure you I would have provided them to you," Kane wrote in a draft of the letter obtained by the Daily News.

The batch of emails that was released in August included images that portrayed blacks as obsessed with fried chicken and a photo of a pants-less woman on her knees performing oral sex on a man, with the caption: "Making your boss happy is your only job."

The emails that have not yet been released are rumored to be quite lewd and include video.

Kane said Williams also failed to look into a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint alleging sexual discrimination within the Attorney General's Office while Fina, Costanzo and Blessington worked there. The complaint has been widely reported in the news.

"In fact, you did not ask my office for any information about your employees' conduct while employed by the OAG," Kane wrote.

Williams' chief of staff, Kathleen Martin, said last night that Kane is free to release all the emails at any time.

"The appellate courts have made abundantly clear that there is no prohibition against Kathleen Kane releasing all emails in her possession. This single act would allow for the critical public dialogue to take place addressing biases in our justice system," Martin said. "Anything short of full and complete disclosure allows Kathleen Kane to continue protecting her allies while attacking her perceived enemies."

Martin, however, could not say whether Kane, in releasing more emails, might run the danger of violating the grand-jury protective order that prevents retaliation against Fina and others.

benderw@phillynews.com

215-854-5255

On Twitter: @wbender99