Reports: Kathleen Kane to be charged over grand jury leak

IT LOOKS AS if Kathleen Kane's tenure as Pennsylvania's attorney general is about to reach a new low.

Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman is expected to file criminal charges against Kane today in connection with a bizarre grand-jury investigation, a source familiar with the case said last night.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review first reported word of the impending charges yesterday afternoon. Kane's spokesman, Chuck Ardo, told the newspaper that Kane would comment if and when Ferman announced the charges.

Even by Pennsylvania standards, the case is mind-boggling.

Last fall, Montgomery County Judge William Carpenter appointed a special prosecutor to lead a grand-jury investigation into allegations that Kane's office had leaked information to a Daily News reporter about a 2009 grand-jury investigation into J. Whyatt Mondesire, the former head of the Philadelphia NAACP.

Insiders speculated that the information had been leaked in an attempt to embarrass Frank Fina, a prosecutor who worked on the case. (Fina now works for District Attorney Seth Williams.)

In January, word leaked to the Inquirer - that's right, another leak - that the grand jury recommended filing criminal charges against Kane.

The decision to press charges was left in the hands of Ferman, but Kane obtained a Supreme Court order barring the Montgomery County D.A. from making any moves until after the court ruled on a challenge from Kane's legal team.

Kane appeared in a crowded City Hall courtroom in Philadelphia in March when the court heard arguments on that challenge, which boiled down to whether Judge Carpenter had the legal authority to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the attorney general.

After the hearing, Kane told reporters that she was "cautiously hopeful."

But in a 4-to-1 decision, the state Supreme Court rejected Kane's challenge, clearing the way for Ferman to decide whether she would bring charges against the first woman and first Democrat to become state attorney general.

Kane has maintained all along that she would not resign, even if she faced criminal charges, and instead would run for a second term next year.