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Plains Twp. native to speak of African teaching at Misericordia University convocation

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Saint Motel plays for sold-out crowd at Kirby Center

<p>NEW YORK, N.Y. &#8212; Following the announcement of criminal charges being filed against Pennsylvania&#8217;s attorney general earlier today, Kathleen Kane through her attorney, proclaimed her innocence.</p><p>Gerald L. Shargel, a partner at New York law firm Winston &amp; Strawn LLP, released a statement on Kane&#8217;s behalf just after 5 p.m.</p><p>&#8220;We have listened very closely to District Attorney Ferman&#8217;s press conference and we have read very carefully the charging instrument. We intend to enter a plea of not guilty. We say now as we have said before that Attorney General Kathleen Kane is innocent of any wrongdoing,&#8221; Shargel said in the statement.</p><p>Shargel said that Kane conspired with no one, and &#8220;at no time did she believe that she was asking or directing anyone to do anything improper or unlawful. In explaining her conduct to the grand jury, she uttered no lie.&#8221;</p><p>Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman charged today that Kane leaked grand jury information to a political operative to pass to the news media &#8220;in hopes of embarrassing and harming former state prosecutors she believed, without evidence, made her look bad.&#8221;</p><p>Kane was charged with official oppression, obstruction of administration of law and perjury.</p><p>&#8220;We learned a lot today about the District Attorney&#8217;s prosecutorial staff, but in this country prosecutors &#8211; however well qualified &#8211; do not decide whether an accused person is guilty. That is left to juries,&#8221; Shargel said.</p><p>&#8220;In this case we will seek a fair-minded jury and ask that jury to render a verdict of not guilty. These are charges that can and will be defeated. The Attorney General is determined to fight these charges. We fully expect that Attorney General Kane will be fully exonerated when all of the facts come to light,&#8221; he concluded.</p><p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-</p><p><em>First posted at 12:10 p.m.</em></p><p><strong>Kane charged in grand jury leaks; Wolf calls for resignation</strong></p><p>NORRISTOWN &#8212; The state&#8217;s top prosecutor was charged Thursday with leaking secret grand jury information and lying about her actions under oath, and is facing calls from the governor to resign.</p><p>Attorney General Kathleen Kane leaked information to a political operative to pass to the news media &#8220;in hopes of embarrassing and harming former state prosecutors she believed, without evidence, made her look bad,&#8221; Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said at a news conference announcing the charges.</p><p>Kane, the first woman and first Democrat elected attorney general in Pennsylvania, was charged with perjury, obstruction and abuse of office.</p><p>&#8220;No one is above the law, not even the chief law enforcement officer of the state of Pennsylvania,&#8221; Ferman said.</p><p><strong>Call for resignation</strong></p><p>Gov. Tom Wolf, during a visit to East Stroudsburg Elementary School, called for Kane to step down.</p><p>&#8220;In this criminal complaint, Attorney General Kathleen Kane was charged with official oppression; she was charged with obstruction of administration of law; she was charged with perjury.These are the charges and there are other serious charges, and they are troubling,&#8221; Wolf said.</p><p>&#8220;And, I am not sure how the top law enforcement officer in Pennsylvania can continue to perform her duties while she is defending herself against these serious charges. They are serious,&#8221; the governor added.</p><p>&#8220;She is entitled to her day in court. She is entitled to due process under our system of government and law, and she will have time to defend herself, and I think she needs to do that,&#8221; Wolf said.</p><p>&#8220;But in the meantime, I am calling on her to step aside, step down as attorney general, because I think she cannot do what she has to do as the top law enforcement officer in Pennsylvania while she&#8217;s facing these serious charges.&#8221;</p><p><strong>Kane reaction</strong></p><p>&#8220;I am very disappointed the district attorney has made the decision to pursue this case. I have maintained my innocence from the day these allegations surfaced and I continue to do so today,&#8221; Kane said in a news release.</p><p>&#8220;I intend to defend myself vigorously against these charges. I look forward to the opportunity to present my case in a public courtroom and move beyond the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that has defined the process to this point,&#8221; her statement continues.</p><p>Kane&#8217;s driver, Patrick Reese of Dunmore, was also charged with indirect criminal contempt in the case. Ferman said he gained access to the files of the grand jury that was investigating his boss.</p><p>&#8220;This is a sad day for the citizens of Pennsylvania and a sad day for all of us in law enforcement,&#8221; Ferman said. &#8220;When someone entrusted with upholding the law violates that oath, we are all victims.&#8221;</p><p><strong>Local appearance</strong></p><p>Kane made an appearance Tuesday in Luzerne County when agents from her office raided an alleged &#8216;ecstasy factory&#8217; in Hazleton.</p><p>A grand jury recommended charges in December in connection with allegations Kane unlawfully leaked information from a 2009 investigation in what witnesses said was an attempt to embarrass critics.</p><p>Kane is the second state attorney general to face criminal charges this week. She&#8217;s also the second Pennsylvania attorney general charged in the last 20 years.</p><p>An indictment unsealed Monday charged Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton with securities fraud. Ernest Preate resigned as Pennsylvania&#8217;s attorney general in 1995 and served a year in federal prison after pleading guilty to mail fraud related to a campaign contribution.</p><p>Criminal charges mark a new low in Kane&#8217;s tumultuous three-year tenure, further weakening her shaky hold on an office that has seen an exodus of top aides, fumbled corruption cases, feuds with former prosecutors and misstatements she later had to retract.</p><p>The investigation of Kane centered on allegations that a June 2014 Philadelphia Daily News article about a former Philadelphia NAACP official&#8217;s alleged misuse of state job-training grants contained confidential information from a grand jury case.</p><p>A statewide grand jury investigating the allegations recommended Kane be charged with criminal contempt, perjury, obstruction, false swearing and official oppression.</p><p>The grand jury judge, William Carpenter, referred the matter to the county district attorney&#8217;s office in January, along with a later allegation that she fired a staff prosecutor whose testimony helped build the leak case against her.</p><p><strong>Kane&#8217;s responses</strong></p><p>The 49-year-old Kane has acknowledged giving information to the Daily News but denied it was bound by secrecy laws and said she hasn&#8217;t broken any laws. She also contended the prosecutor was fired for job-related performance, not revenge.</p><p>Kane has vowed to run for office again in 2016. She has accused her critics and investigators of trying to undermine her because she had dared to take on a corrupt, old-boy law enforcement network. Newspaper editorial boards across the state have called for her to resign.</p><p>Relying heavily on her trucking magnate husband&#8217;s wealth, the Scranton native campaigned as a disrupter of the status quo and pledged to investigate whether politics played a role in the three years it took to investigate and charge former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky with child sex abuse crimes.</p><p>At first, Democrats lauded the former Lackawanna County prosecutor as a rising political star. They cheered her for refusing to defend Pennsylvania&#8217;s law banning recognition of gay marriage and rejecting then-Republican Gov. Tom Corbett&#8217;s contract with a private firm to run the Pennsylvania Lottery. Some Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, accused her of playing politics and raised talk of impeachment.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane speaks with husband and wife Craig and Villmarie Budde, the president and vice president of Northeast Hazleton Crime Watch, near a garage that Kane&#8217;s agents raided on Tuesday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_TTL080515ecstasy_jump4.jpg</photo0><caption0>Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane speaks with husband and wife Craig and Villmarie Budde, the president and vice president of Northeast Hazleton Crime Watch, near a garage that Kane&#8217;s agents raided on Tuesday. </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_Kane3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Kane </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_Kane3.jpg</photo1><caption1>Kane </caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Maryclaire Dale</p><p>Associated Press</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Times Leader Staff contributed to this report.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

UPDATE: Counsel for Kane says she will plead not guilty to charges filed earlier today