Criminal charges expected against attorney general

Sources tell Action News that Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane will be charged today after an ongoing investigation into a grand jury leak.

After not being seen publicly for weeks, last month, Kane said prosecutors have not told her how soon they will decide to charge her for allegedly leaking a secret case.

Those allegations were forwarded to Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman.

Ferman is a Republican running for judge in November.

A Waverly Twp. resident, Kane in 2012 became the first woman and Democrat elected attorney general in Pennsylvania.

A prosecutor considering charges has scheduled a news conference.

The investigating grand jury heard from several current and former Office of Attorney General employees who testified that the memorandum was subject to grand jury secrecy. Kane’s spokesman, Chuck Ardo, told the newspaper that Kane would comment if and when Ferman announced the charges.

The panel concluded that her testimony was “materially false”. He was never charged in that inquiry. Fina, who works for the Philadelphia district attorney, has denied doing so. Both also played key roles in the successful prosecution of retired Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on child sex-abuse charges.

She has said she believes the leak investigation related was concocted by Republican men angry at her for shaking up the status quo in the Attorney General’s office. Mr. Fina has denied that he erred in how he handled the investigation.

Kane declined to prosecute the so-called “sting case”, saying it was legally flawed.

Kane is accused of leaking grand jury material from a 2009 case before she was attorney general. “I mean, after all, the grand jury had been dissolved for five years”.

“I gave her the statement [the Miletto transcript], and she was flipping through and looking at it, and then she laid it down in front of her”, Peifer testified, adding Kane retained sole possession of the transcript.