Kane denies Castille's request for info on explicit e-mails

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane has denied - at least for now - a request from the state's top jurist to share information on the sexually explicit e-mails her office says state employees exchanged over government computers.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille asked Kane last month to provide copies of any such messages that were sent or received by judges or employees of the state judiciary. Castille has said any judge who exchanged grossly pornographic material using court equipment might have violated the state's code of judicial ethics.

In an e-mail to the Republican justice Thursday, Kane, a Democrat, said her office did not have the time or resources to immediately provide the information Castille sought. She also raised questions about her legal right to do so.

"I understand that the Court considers this matter to be of utmost importance," she wrote. "Our cooperation will be to the full extent of our abilities."

The decision did not sit well with Castille, who within hours sent a terse reply. "What I expect is your compliance with this request," it read in part. "I consider your complaint of lack of resources as the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania bordering on the frivolous. After all, you are an Officer of the Court."

Their correspondence, obtained by The Inquirer, revealed the latest dustup in a scandal that has led to the resignation of two Corbett administration appointees and the requested resignation of a third. The scandal also has widened to touch other officials, including a member of Castille's court.

The explicit exchanges under review by Kane's office showed that some had been forwarded from a personal e-mail account belonging to Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery, according to copies of the messages obtained last week by The Inquirer. There has been no indication the McCaffery e-mails were sent using court equipment.

McCaffery has not responded to requests for comment. His lawyer, Dion G. Rassias, issued a statement Thursday that questioned why the justice's private e-mails were a matter of public debate.

The larger trove of graphic e-mails was discovered on government servers in the Attorney General's Office during Kane's review of her predecessors' handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse investigation.

Last week, Kane agreed to share some of the graphic e-mails with Gov. Corbett's office upon a request similar to Castille's.

The difference, Kane spokeswoman Renee Martin said Friday, was that the governor specifically sought information on e-mails sent or received by eight officials whom Kane had named publicly.

Their correspondence, Kane said at the time, had been the subject of a Right-to-Know request from news outlets, including The Inquirer. And while a wider swath of state employees had been involved in the exchanges, union rules and human resources policies prohibited her from naming others, she said.

In her reply to Castille, Kane explained that the e-mails she had shared with Corbett were found in boxes of "former OAG employees, using OAG computers on OAG time."

To comply with Castille's request for explicit e-mails sent or received by any state judges, Kane said her office would have to search the cache of explicit messages again and then evaluate if it could legally hand them over.

In his reply, Castille cited media reports that at least some of the explicit videos and images Kane had shared with reporters had appeared in the e-mail exchanges that passed through McCaffery's personal account.

Kane shared that graphic material, Castille wrote, "apparently with little concern for the legal niceties that you feel your office must review pertaining to my request."