Kane fires, disciplines AG employees over porn e-mails

HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane said Wednesday she had fired, suspended, or disciplined about two dozen employees for sending or receiving e-mails containing pornographic content over the last few years.

In a statement, Kane said an internal review had identified 31 workers whose e-mails contained sexually explicit content, although she didn't say when the messages were sent. The disclosure comes after her office had said it identified 30 other workers in the office who participated in pornographic e-mail exchanges between 2008 and 2012.

The 61 represent just short of 10 percent of the 750 workers in the office.

Of them, Kane said, four have been fired, two will be fired, and two have resigned. Eleven others were suspended without pay, and others were being disciplined or reprimanded in their personnel files.

Her office said some of the affected employees had sent the messages after Kane took office in 2013 and after she reinforced the policy regarding the appropriate use of state computers.

"I am determined to put an end to this behavior," Kane said. "I was disappointed to learn that some individuals chose to continue sharing pornography on taxpayer time."

The disciplinary actions became the latest fallout in the ongoing pornographic e-mail scandal, which has already cost six people, including one Supreme Court justice, their jobs.

The statement Kane released Wednesday did not include full names or titles of the disciplined employees.

Renee Martin, Kane's spokeswoman, said the office was not identifying disciplined employees who will remain with the office but said they ranged from administrative workers to agents. She said none were in senior staff positions.

The pornographic e-mail scandal erupted in late September, when Kane, a Democrat, released the names of eight men, all of whom worked for her Republican predecessors, who she said exchanged pornographic e-mails between 2008 and 2012.

They included onetime state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary E. Christopher Abruzzo and State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan.

Gov. Corbett asked for - and received - resignations from Abruzzo and a top attorney in his office, Glenn Parno, as well as from Randy Feathers, the governor's onetime appointee to the State Board of Probation and Parole.

Corbett, who ran the Attorney General's Office when some of the e-mails were traded, said Noonan did not open any of the sexually explicit content and should remain in his position.

Two others also lost their jobs: Chris Carusone, Corbett's onetime legislative liaison who was working for a large Philadelphia law firm at the time the scandal erupted; and Richard A. Sheetz, a top attorney in the Attorney General's Office under Corbett who was working for the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office.

Another prominent official, former Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery, retired from the high court after his name surfaced in connection with the e-mails and the court approved a deeper inquiry into his conduct.

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