PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
PA Attorney General: Corruption or Incompetence - The Kathleen Kane Saga: A Timeline :: 05/19/2015
Ahead of her court hearing, we [ed. note: Politics PA] provide a comprehensive timeline of the various scandals and tribulations of Attorney General Kathleen Kane.
Note: For the most part, staff departures are not included due to the sheer volume of changes.
2011
March 29th: PoliticsPA is the first to report Lackawanna County prosecutor Kathleen Kane will run for the 2012 Democratic nomination for Attorney General.
March 31st: Sara Ganim of the Patriot-News reports former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky is under investigation for allegations he assaulted a minor. Ganim and the paper will later win the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting.
November 5th: Sandusky is indicted with 40 charges of sex crimes against underaged boys.
November 9th: The Penn State Board of Trustees, which included Gov. Tom Corbett, fires long-time head football coach Joe Paterno and University President Graham Spanier. The dismissal of Paterno, who worked for Penn State since 1950, infuriates university alumni.
2012
January 22nd: Joe Paterno dies of complications from lung cancer. His death only heightens the outrage of PSU alumni towards Gov. Corbett.
March 26th: Former President Bill Clinton endorses Kane’s campaign. Clinton’s high-profile support will result in campaign appearances and commercials that propel Kane to the top of the Democratic primary polls.
April 24th: Kathleen Kane wins the 2012 Democratic nomination for Attorney General by a 53%-47% margin over former Congressman Patrick Murphy.
June 22nd: Jerry Sandusky is convicted of 45 counts of sexual abuse and later sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison.
July 12th: The Freeh Report, an investigation by former FBI Director Louis Freeh commissioned by Penn State, is released. The report is deeply critical of the university’s administration, including Paterno. These conclusions are still contested by many PSU alumni. Kathleen Kane begins to call for an investigation into whether Tom Corbett slowed down the prosecution of Sandusky over political concerns. Among those prosecutors who worked on the Sandusky case was Frank Fina.
September 27th: In a meeting with the Scranton Times-Tribune editorial board, Kane says Gov. Corbett “probably” played politics with the Sandusky investigation.
November 6th: Kane becomes the first elected female Attorney General in the history of Pennsylvania. She defeats GOP nominee Dave Freed 56% to 42% and becomes the first Democrat elected to that office. In her first election, Kane finishes with a higher vote total than President Obama or Senator Casey and instantly becomes the newest star in PA politics.
2013
January 15th: Kathleen Kane is inaugurated as the 48th Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. She is the first woman to ever hold the office.
February 4th: Kane hires H. Geoffrey Moulton to investigate the handling of the Jerry Sandusky case.
July 11th: The Attorney General announces she will not defend the state’s law against same-sex marriage, further raising her profile. Later, State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe will introduce an impeachment resolution in response to Kane’s stand.
December 13th: Ahead of PA Society weekend, Kane indicates she is open to a run against Senator Pat Toomey in 2016.
2014
March 17th: Angela Couloumbis and Craig R. McCoy of the Philadelphia Inquirer publish a story revealing that Kane shut down a sting operation that began in 2010 and was targeting several Philly State Reps. Kane’s office suggests race was a factor in why the investigation was flawed. Her only direct comment concerned those who disagreed with her decision, who she described as “nothing more than the Good Ol’ Boys club playing political games to discredit me in order to fulfill their own selfish and improper agenda.” This investigation was led by Fina and, though never proven, it is suspected that he was behind the leak to the Inquirer.
March 20th: Kane hires Richard Sprague and his son to represent her for any possible defamation lawsuits stemming from the sting story. The Attorney General arrives to a pre-arranged meeting with the Inquirer editorial board along with Sprague and lets him speak for her. Sprague indicates that lawsuits may be forthcoming. The move causes a massive media backlash.
March 24th: Meanwhile, Kane reviews a case in which Fina did not act in an investigation of former Philly NAACP head J. Whyatt Mondesire. She wants to release information about the case against the advice of her staff.
At 12:53 a.m. Kane’s top deputy Adrian King emails her.
“I fail to see how we can legally give . . . access to any OAG [Office of Attorney General] criminal division file materials.”
Kane responds at 3:38 a.m.
“I am well aware of the limitations of disclosing criminal files. . .,” she wrote. “I have been in this business quite some time.”
During this exchange, the two also discussed the public relations nightmare caused by Sprague’s unexpected presence before the Inquirer editorial board.
“You are now being perceived as weak, lacking credibility, and having something to hide (when you have absolutely nothing to hide),” King wrote.
“Sprague was engaged to represent me, since it is my reputation, not anyone else’s, that has been trashed,” Kane replied.
“It is reassuring, though, that when it has to do with me, despite my constant defense of others, I am on my own,” she continued, “nothing I am not already used to.”
Kane would later testify that King was in favor of leaking the materials. King would ultimately hand the information off to a political operative, although he claimed it was inside an unmarked manilla envelope and he didn’t know what was inside.
April 10th: Kathleen Kane challenges critic and Philadelphia DA Seth Williams to pursue the sting case. The Attorney General would initially hesitate to hand over the case files but eventually would.
Additionally, Kane described the evidence that led her to believe racial bias was involved in the investigation. “Our special agent in charge put that in a note, in his case note, and did an affidavit to that effect. . . . That is the evidence we have.” Those notes and that affidavit, from an interview between Kevin Wevodau and the case agent Claude Thomas, did not exist.
April 14th: Wevodau writes out an unsworn case memo outlining Thomas’ supposed complaints.
May 8th: Frank Fina and Marc Costanzo, responding to a question from a reporter, tell Judge William R. Carpenter that they believe someone likely “committed a very serious crime” by releasing grand jury material.
May 29th: Judge Carpenter appointed Thomas Carluccio as Special Prosecutor to investigate “any alleged disclosure of information protected by the law.”
June 3rd: It is announced that Adrian King is resigning from the AG office. In a 2015 profile, Maria Panaritis said Kane “knew and deeply trusted only one of her top lieutenants: Adrian R. King.” She also revealed that Kane and King dated in the 1990’s.
June 6th: A story on Fina’s neglect to prosecute Mondesire is published by Chris Brennan of the Philadelphia Daily News.
June 23rd: The Attorney General finally releases the Moulton Report. The report and Moulton himself mildly critiqued some of Corbett’s decisions but the investigators are mostly exonerated. Kane steals the headlines though when she incorrectly asserts that abuse continued during the original investigation into 2009. It takes the AG three days to apologize for her remarks.
August 29th: Brad Bumsted and Melissa Daniels of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reveal that Moulton’s investigation uncovered numerous sexually explicit emails that were sent and shared in the database of the Attorney General’s office.
September 19th: The protective order is lifted off the emails, leaving Kane in charge of what to do with the pornographic material.
September 24th: Kane initially refuses to release the emails.
October 8th: Attorney General Kane hands over 4,000 emails to PA Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron Castille.
October 13th: Couloumbis and McCoy reveal that Frank Fina was among those who participated in the exchange of pornographic emails. Additionally, Judge Carpenter ruled that Kane could not reveal this information as it may be seen as intimidation in the grand jury investigation against her.
October 27th: PA Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery resigns after it is revealed he participated in the email exchanges (this scandal is worthy of its own separate timeline).
November 13th: Kane disciplines 31 staffers for their involvement in exchanging pornographic emails.
November 17th: The AG appears before the grand jury and admits leaking the material but asserts she didn’t violate the secrecy laws. She was joined by her new attorney Lanny Davis.
November 19th: In an interview with Sara Ganim on CNN, Kane claims the pornographic emails contained pictures of children. A claim she soon backtracked on.
December 13th: Kane announces she will be running for re-election as Attorney General in 2016.
December 16th: Philly DA Seth Williams announces charges against two State Reps. involved in the Philly sting operation.
December 22nd: A new report from Couloumbis and McCoy features an interview with Claude Thomas in which he insists race had nothing to do with the Philly sting investigation.
“I never uttered those words or anything near those words. That is a complete lie,” Thomas told the Inquirer. “For the entire investigation, race never came up whatsoever.”
December 27th: Kathleen Kane files for divorce from her husband of 14 years, Christopher. She calls their marriage “irretrievably broken”.
2015
January 8th: In yet another Couloumbis and McCoy report, the state learns that the grand jury is recommending charges of perjury and contempt of court against Kane.
January 13th: Special Prosecutor Thomas Carluccio subpoenas Couloumbis and McCoy after they reveal the grand jury recommended charges.
January 21st: Kane announces that she will not resign and also will challenge the legality of Special Prosecutor Carluccio’s work before the PA Supreme Court.
February 3rd: Kathleen Kane is profiled in the New York Times. “This all started because of retaliation against me for doing my job,” she told the paper of record.
February 19th: A new court filing reveals that Kane is also facing another recommend charge from the grand jury. This one is for criminal contempt.
February 23rd: Lanny Davis creates www.TruthAboutKathleenKane.com.
March 10th: Seth Williams charges three more officials involved in the sting operation.
March 12th: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Kane’s case that the appointment of a special prosecutor is illegal.
March 31st: In a 4-1 decision, the PA Supreme Court rejects the AG’s appeal.
April 2nd: Couloumbis and McCoy break yet another story. This one concerns Kane blocking subpoenas against some powerful Northwest PA officials in a casino investigation.
April 9th: Brad Bumsted reports that Kane fired her Appeals Office head James Barker. After initially saying it was because of “restructuring”, the Attorney General states that Barker was fired for being unable to prevent grand jury leaks. Barker is among those that testified to the grand jury that called for charges against Kane.
Meanwhile, Kane’s spokeswoman announces that she gave her boss her two weeks notice earlier that week.
April 10th: Judge Carpenter orders Kane to appear at an April 27th hearing to investigate whether Barker’s firing was in retaliation for testimony that contradicted Kane.
Later that night, it is revealed that Montgomery County DA Risa Vetri Ferman issued search warrants for Kane’s headquarters in Harrisburg, her office in Norristown and her emails.
April 21st: Claude Thomas, the undercover agent involved in the Philly sting case, declares that he is suing Kathleen Kane for saying that Thomas considered the operation racially motivated.
April 23rd: Judge Carpenter delays the Attorney General’s April 27th contempt of court hearing but agrees to allow oral arguments on the defense’s claims that the Judge is biased against Kane.
April 27th: Kane’s attorneys argue before Judge Carpenter that Barker’s firing was justified and not the protective order for grand jury witnesses expired in January.
April 28th: Montgomery County DA Risa Vetri Ferman expands her investigation to cover the firing of James Barker.
May 1st: Bumsted reports that Kane’s Chief of Staff Jonathan Duecker was accused of sexual harassment. Couloumbis and McCoy reveal Kane was aware of the allegations and that a second incident may also have occurred.
May 10th: A new piece from Couloumbis reveals that after learning of the accusations, H.R. recommended to Kane that she fire Duecker. She refused.
May 11th: Couloumbis reports that Kane has given Duecker personnel control, which includes the power to hire and fire officials. The AG was not phased by the sexual harassment allegations.
May 13th: Charles Thompson of the Patriot-News reveals that members of the Attorney General’s office are exploring options to unionize.
http://www.politicspa.com/the-kathleen-kane-saga-a-timeline/65556/
