Judge nixes pornographic email scandal as Kane trial defense

    The judge in Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s criminal case won’t allow jurors to hear as a trial defense that she was prosecuted to stop her from revealing a pornographic email scandal her office unearthed.

    Montgomery County Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy ruled on the motion Thursday, barely a week before Kane’s trial begins.

    The first-term Democrat is accused of leaking secret investigative information to the Philadelphia Daily News in 2014 to embarrass rival prosecutors and then lying about it under oath.

    Kane has argued that two former state prosecutors propelled the leak investigation to stop her from publicly disclosing any of the offensive emails that were discovered in their email accounts on the office’s servers. But prosecutors say that theory doesn’t explain why she allegedly lied to the grand jury, and they asked the judge to bar it.

    • WHYY thanks our sponsors — become a WHYY sponsor

    WHYY is your source for fact-based, in-depth journalism and information. As a nonprofit organization, we rely on financial support from readers like you. Please give today.

    Want a digest of WHYY’s programs, events & stories? Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

    Together we can reach 100% of WHYY’s fiscal year goal