Once again, Kane's lawyers seek to have case against her dismissed

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane on Thursday contended anew that the pending criminal charges against her should be dismissed as an unfair case of "selective and vindictive" prosecution.

Kane's legal team blamed former state prosecutor Frank Fina for the prosecution, saying he set the case in motion because he loathed Kane.

They said he set out to retaliate against Kane because she had criticized his handling of criminal cases and was investigating his habit of emailing messages that contained pornography and other offensive material from his office computer.

In the motion, Kane was forced to restate arguments originally made in April. Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy later ruled that Kane's lawyers had not properly framed their arguments in their first attempt.

Kane is charged with illegally leaking grand jury information in a 2014 bid to plant a newspaper story to embarrass Fina. She blamed Fina for an earlier newspaper article reporting her decision to shut down a corruption investigation involving state legislators and other elected officials.

After a reporter from the Daily News contacted him to ask about grand jury material, Fina wrote a judge to say that confidential material had been leaked.

Kane later told a grand jury investigating the leak that she had authorized the release of material, but had done so in a lawful way. She is charged with perjury, official oppression, and other crimes and has pleaded not guilty.

In legal papers filed Thursday, Kane's lawyers said that leaks of grand jury information were "not uncommon," while prosecutions for those leaks were "extraordinary."

They said Fina had failed to complain about grand jury leaks from the investigation into legislative corruption, which he led. Kane's lawyers erred in making that contention; that probe did not involve a grand jury.

Kane's lawyers also faulted Fina for failing to convene an investigative grand jury to look into leaks from the investigation of serial sex offender Jerry Sandusky. What the lawyers did not say is that the judge in that case appointed two special prosecutors, James Reeder and Ken Brown, to investigate the leaks and said they could bring witnesses before a grand jury. Reeder later complained that Kane's office was not cooperating with them.

Prosecutors, in their own legal pleadings, have said Kane's legal argument is irrelevant to the case against her, and have described it as an attempt to "write another chapter in the wearied feud" between herself and Fina.

Regardless of Fina's role as a trigger, the prosecutors said, others in the criminal justice system, including members of a grand jury, two judges, and a district attorney, had all found merit in the case against Kane.

Her lawyers also asked Demchick-Alley to reject the view that Fina's role was a red herring because he had not played any role in the decision to arrest Kane.

They said this argument was far too "narrow" and had been rejected previously by state appeals courts.

cmccoy@phillynews.com

215-854-4821 @CraigRMcCoy