Kane aide convicted of criminal contempt over email snooping

Kane’s said the committee’s work violates the state constitution.

A top aide to Pennsylvania’s attorney general is due in court Monday for a contempt hearing on charges he snooped on emails to keep tabs on a grand jury investigation involving his boss. The suspension stems from the perjury and other criminal charges she faces for allegedly leaking secret grand jury material to a newspaper and then lying about it.

The charge of indirect criminal contempt carries a maximum sentence of six months and a $1,000 fine.

A spokesman for embattled Attorney General Kathleen Kane said Tuesday that a filing of judicial conduct charges against Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice J. Michael Eakin is, for Kane, “a small victory in a large battle”. He searched for emails between the special prosecutor running the grand jury and employees working for Kane, even after Judge William Carpenter issued the protective order.

Authorities alleged Reese accessed an email archiving system to gain access to emails pertaining to the grand jury investigation. The Evault system is restricted to those employees who are granted access and have a user account and password, Niziol testified. “The reality of what she’s been saying is just beginning to gain a foothold”.

Reese’s lawyer, William Fetterhoff, suggested through cross-examination that other people in Kane’s office also knew which employees were set to testify.

“You do not open a can of soup and not eat it”, McGoldrick responded. Carpenter was supervising judge of the grand jury overseeing the Kane investigation.

“It has nothing to do with leaks to the press”, he said.

Mr. Reese, a former Dunmore police chief, declined to comment.

He was not sure when the full Senate might then consider her removal. Fetterhoff argued the protective order, while applicable by its terms to “employees of the Office of Attorney General”, did not provide for or require any service upon or notice to such OAG employees.