Click here to subscribe today or Login.
‘Tis the season to find out who’s been naughty and who’s been nice.
We never thought Pennsylvania’s highest judges and prosecutors would be in the same class with kids being warned they better watch out.
Instead of Santa Claus, a team of Washington-based lawyers is coming to town to determine whether or not the top echelons of Pennsylvania law enforcement were good — for goodness sake Or, if they naughtily snuck peeks at porn on taxpayer-funded computers.
State Attorney General Kathleen Kane, that darling of the state judiciary, held a press conference Tuesday to announce she has commissioned an independent review of thousands of emails containing pornographic and other offensive material which prosecutors and judges may have shared for their own merriment.
Former Maryland attorney general Doug Gansler will head the team.
Kane chose the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia as the backdrop for her press conference. She probably figured it was worth the trip to illustrate that George Washington, John Adams and James Madison held themselves to a higher standard.
“The discovery of these emails gives us, the people, a unique opportunity to see the problem, hidden away for many years, address the problem and progress as a commonwealth,” Kane said.
What a Grinch! What about boys will be boys?
Not this time. We’re talking about state judges and prosecutors. Aren’t judges, especially, expected to be above reproach? Oops, almost forgot about Luzerne County’s very own Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella, who, with a prominent local developer and a shyster Hazleton lawyer, enriched themselves off the backs of juvenile delinquents and taxpayers by conspiring to build a privately-owned detention center when the county already had one of its own. And let us not forget about former county judge Michael Toole, who traded his honor when he stacked the deck at an arbitration hearing for a lawyer in exchange for free use of the lawyer’s oceanfront beach house.
Definitely NAUGHTY!
At least two state Supreme Court justices were ensnared in the email scandal. Justice Seamus McCaffery abruptly retired after the Supreme Court suspended him. He’s probably living comfortably off a generous pension for a job well done. Justice Michael Eakin is being investigated by the state’s Court of Judicial Discipline.
Gansler said his team will have subpoena and grand jury powers and may prosecute if it finds evidence that crimes occurred. That’s sure to put a damper on the holidays of those who may have indulged in porn. You know who you are.
The good news is the investigation is expected to conclude “relatively quickly,” Gansler said. The bad news is it’s going to cost around $2 million. Gansler will be “paid a daily rate commensurate with Kane’s $158,000-a-year salary,” the Associated Press reported. That’s all the state’s top prosecutor is paid? WOW. Luzerne County District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis’ salary is a reported $178,000 and she prosecutes nothing.
We can only hope when this investigation is complete, the miscreant judges and law enforcement officers who got their jollies on company time are made to reimburse the state for all costs associated with this porno probe. That’s the least we can expect. Of course, they should also immediately lose their jobs.
Why are taxpayers always on the hook for alleged misdeeds and irresponsibility of elected and appointed officials? It’s bad enough Luzerne County taxpayers may have to pay $200,000 in fees and interest for an emergency loan because state Gov. Tom Wolf and our esteemed lawmakers can’t agree on a budget. But don’t worry, they may wrap things up soon because they won’t want anything standing in the way of their month-long holiday break.
Of course, there will be some who will question Kane’s motives, saying she is out to embarrass everyone on the face of the earth who stripped her of her law license and are trying to remove her from office because she allegedly leaked grand jury information and then lied about doing so.
Good old Dennis Roddy, former state Gov. Tom Corbett’s special assistant, always seems to surface when there are new developments regarding Kathleen Kane.
In a column published Thursday in the Times Leader, Roddy equated her appointing Gansler to pursue the email scandal to payback for her legal woes saying, “If she’s going down on two counts of perjury, why make the journey alone?” Exactly, who wants that? He also said Gansler will “now take up the sword for Kathleen Kane in her bid to take down every other person she can before the General Assembly brings down the curtain on this legal burlesque.”
Legal burlesque? How about judicial voyeurism? Apparently, Roddy has no problem with state judges and law enforcement officers viewing salacious videos that may have disparaged women, minorities and religion as much as he does with the messenger who exposed them.
Whatever her motivation, Kathleen Kane is lifting the curtain on despicable behavior and showing she’s not the only one who deserves to find coal in her stocking this year.