Ex-Hershey Trust official gives $100K to Kane

HARRISBURG - A former board member of the multibillion-dollar charity that controls the Hershey Co. has made a $100,000 campaign contribution to Kathleen Kane, the Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania attorney general, reports made public Monday show.

The hefty donation from Robert Reese to Kane comes amid a pending state investigation of the Hershey Trust, whose board was once chaired by the father-in-law of Kane's Republican opponent, David Freed.

Reese, a grandson of the man who created Reese's peanut-butter cups, is a former member of the boards of the Hershey Trust and the school for disadvantaged children that it benefits. He sued the trust over alleged financial improprieties last year, a few months after the Attorney General's Office revealed it was conducting a civil investigation of transactions by the trust. The trust sought dismissal of the lawsuit, denying any wrongdoing. Reese later withdrew it.

Freed's father-in-law was the trust's board chairman during the period in question.

- AP