Kane accuses prosecutors of leaking information to reporters

Lawyers for Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane say the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office may have committed prosecutorial misconduct by leaking damaging information to a newspaper reporter to bolster the criminal case against her.

There is a certain irony to that contention, made in a legal filing Friday: Kane herself is charged with illegally leaking information to a newspaper.

Kane's lawyers cited a story that appeared last month in the Allentown Morning Call, detailing a secretly recorded conversation that the newspaper said prosecutors could use to show that Kane had unlawfully leaked information and later lied about it under oath. The revelation about the recording was attributed to an unnamed source.

The story quoted a legal expert who called the recording "a slam dunk" for prosecutors in Montgomery County, where the case will be tried.

"The only party . . . with a motive to release them to the press is the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office," Gerald L. Shargel, Kane's lead defense lawyer, wrote in the filing.

Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele declined to comment Friday.

A hearing on the matter, as well as other pretrial issues, is scheduled for Tuesday.

The Morning Call article reported that a political consultant to Kane was picked up on a wiretap in 2014 as federal prosecutors were investigating then-state Treasurer Rob McCord. McCord has since pleaded guilty to corruption charges.

As federal authorities listened in, the consultant, Josh Morrow, said Kane had called him and outlined a plan to leak confidential documents related to a 2009 investigation run by former state prosecutor Frank Fina, with whom Kane was feuding. Federal authorities later turned that tape over to Montgomery County law enforcement officials.

Prosecutors allege that Kane leaked the information to a Daily News reporter because she believed it showed that Fina had botched the investigation.

They say she blamed Fina for planting a negative story in the Inquirer about her 2013 decision to shut down an undercover sting that had captured Democratic elected officials on tape accepting money or gifts. Fina had launched that probe.

Kane, 49, a Democrat, has pleaded not guilty to perjury and other charges. Her trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 8.

Morrow is expected to be a witness, Kane's lawyers said Friday.

The lawyers have asked for a hearing to determine whether anyone from Montgomery County District Attorney's Office was a source for the Morning Call story.

They are also asking permission to file, under seal, legal documents outlining their position that Kane is the victim of "selective and vindictive prosecution."

The lawyers said they wanted to file the motion in secret because they believed doing so publicly could subject them and Kane to a contempt charge. Her legal team provided few details about that, but said a Philadelphia judge, Diana L. Anhalt, told them this month that a public filing could trigger a contempt action.

A low-profile figure in the complicated Kane saga, Anhalt has been presiding over the grand jury that has reinvestigated the corruption cases Kane rejected when she shut down the sting.

The grand jury recommended criminal charges against six Philadelphia officials, five of whom have pleaded guilty or no contest.

During the reinvestigation, Anhalt issued a protective order banning retaliation against witnesses in the cases. The order was meant to shield witnesses, including many current or former employees of the Attorney General's Office, from retaliation for their testimony about Kane. Fina, among many others, is covered by the protective order.

Kane is also seeking to argue that while she is being prosecuted for leaks, others who have leaked information about her case have gone unpunished.

acouloumbis@phillynews.com

717-787-5934 @AngelasInk