Judge denies motion to drop charges against Kane

Kane claimed she was a victim of vindictive prosecution

NORRISTOWN >> A Montgomery County judge has rejected Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s request to throw out criminal charges against her.

In a one-sentence court order issued Monday by Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy, the motion to quash charges based on “selective and vindictive prosecution” was denied. Kane filed the motion for a second time May 26 after it was withdrawn during pretrial hearings.

Montgomery County prosecutors argued in a response to the original motion that the claim was frivolous because “there have been five independent determinations of probable cause.”

Kane’s defense attorney Gerald L. Shargel argued in the court filings that the she was “singled out for investigation and subsequent prosecution in this case as a result of the initiative of prosecutors with personal antagonism towards Attorney General Kane.”

Kane’s motion alleged that two former prosecutors in her office, Frank G. Fina and E. Marc Costanzo, instigated the investigation against her after they became “incensed” by Kane’s review of their work. Kane’s lawyers alleged Fina and Costanzo in May 2014 sent a letter to Montgomery County Judge William R. Carpenter “to report the release of grand jury information” and suggested an investigation.

Kane faces trial Aug. 8 on charges of perjury, obstructing administration of law, abuse of office and false swearing in connection with allegations she orchestrated the illegal disclosure of confidential investigative information and secret grand jury information to the media and then engaged in acts designed to conceal and cover up her alleged conduct.

The order from Demchick-Alloy comes on the heels of a Superior Court order granting prosecutors’ request to quash an appeal of pre-trial rulings. That ruling essentially allows Kane’s Aug. 8 trial date to remain on schedule.

Kane, a Democrat who is not seeking re-election, has claimed she did nothing wrong and has implied the charges are part of an effort to force her out of office because she discovered pornographic emails being exchanged between state employees on state email addresses.

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane departs after her preliminary hearing Monday, Aug. 24, 2015, at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown. Kane is accused of leaking secret grand jury information to the press, lying under oath and...