Kane says porn e-mails contained images of children

HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane made a new accusation Tuesday in the pornographic e-mail scandal, saying the sexually explicit messages exchanged by state officials and employees sometimes contained images involving children.

In an interview with CNN, Kane said she was being prevented from investigating the e-mail scandal because of court orders, which she declined to describe.

When asked to describe the pornographic images, Kane said, "When I saw them they literally took my breath away. And they are deplorable: hard-core, graphic, sometimes violent e-mails that had a string of videos and pictures depicting sometimes children, old women, some of them involved violent sexual acts against women."

It was the first time since the scandal exploded this fall that Kane had suggested any of the images might have included children. She did not elaborate and was not asked to in the interview.

Her newly hired spokesman, lawyer Lanny Davis, said he knew of two photos retrieved in Kane's internal investigation that he called "borderline" child pornography. "I wouldn't say over the line, but I would say very close," Davis said.

One depicts a boy and girl, in underwear, with the boy looking into the girl's underpants. The other shows a pair of younger clothed children, about 2 or 3, kissing, he said. Sources familiar with the e-mails obtained say the photos come from a set called "Men in Training."

The set includes a photo of a baby in a high chair with a beer in front of him or her. Another shows a baby in diapers standing on a chair to look at a computer image of a bikini-clad woman. The set has two photos of infants kissing.

A spokesman for the Corbett administration, which also reviewed some of the explicit e-mails, said Tuesday it was unaware of any that had photos of children. "This is new information to us," said Jay Pagni, Corbett's spokesman.