Kenya Mann Faulkner is Corbett's pick for inspector general

A former federal prosecutor who helped convict City Councilman Rick Mariano on corruption charges - and later tangled with Council members as a member of the city's ethics board - has been named the state's next inspector general.

Gov.-elect Tom Corbett said Friday that he had selected Kenya Mann Faulkner, 45, to lead the 400-employee Inspector General's Office. The agency focuses on exposing fraud and waste in government.

Corbett also said he would nominate Pittsburgh lawyer Glenn Cannon to direct the state's emergency management agency.

Faulkner, of Ambler, is the first Philadelphia-area resident appointed by the governor-elect to a high-level position. Her salary will be $126,000.

Corbett said her experience as a prosecutor "makes her well-suited to lead the Inspector General's Office."

She spent nearly 20 years as a trial lawyer, working as a Philadelphia public defender and later as an assistant U.S. attorney.

She was a member of the trial team that in 2006 won guilty verdicts against Mariano on kickback charges. Faulkner did not respond to requests for comment.

She also served for more than two years on the Philadelphia Board of Ethics, clashing more than once with Council members who found her too prosecutorial. She resigned that post in June.

Since leaving the prosecutor's office, Faulkner has worked at the Ballard Spahr law firm. Faulkner was on Corbett's transition team but is not known as a political figure. State campaign-finance records show she made just three contributions in the last two years, all to Republicans. The last was $200 to Corbett's campaign in October.

Faulkner will replace Donald Patterson, a former Philadelphia police officer turned casino executive who has served as inspector general since 2003.