Inky: Porn Scandal Missed Its Target

Kathleen Kane. AP Photo | Bradley C. Bower

The so-called “Porngate” scandal in Harrisburg has already caused several top officials to lose their jobs, with the potential for even more fallout remaining a big possibility. But the Inky reports today the scandal hasn’t touched one person it targeted: Frank Fina.

Fina now works for Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams; he was a top assistant under then-Attorney General Tom Corbett.

He’s been the target of criticism in recent years by Attorney General Kathleen Kane — first over his handling of the Jerry Sandusky case under Corbett, then for a sting case that seemed to ensnare several Philly Democrats that Kane subsequently abandoned. The dispute, as the Inquirer notes, became ever more tangled, but it eventually led to this:

Numerous people with knowledge of their quarrel — including sources close to both — have said Fina participated in the exchange of X-rated e-mails.

According to the same sources, Kane was intent on making that fact public.

She wanted to expose what she believed was an entrenched misogynistic culture in the Attorney General’s Office when Fina was a ranking prosecutor and before she took charge, people close to her say.

But in late summer, Fina obtained a ruling from a Montgomery County judge barring Kane from citing his name publicly in almost any fashion, according to several sources familiar with the ruling.

According to the Inquirer, Fina made the case that Kane’s office had used the threat of releasing the explicit emails to silence his public criticism of Kane. Fina also tried, and failed, to get an order suppressing release of the emails under the grounds they were covered by grand jury secrecy in the Sandusky case, the Inquirer said.

That Inky suggests that order partially explains why Kane has named only eight — out of 30 or so individuals — who received the emails. While her office also mentioned union contracts and the secrecy of state disciplinary process, it also “obliquely” referenced the order Fina had obtained. “There are restrictions — upon which we cannot elaborate — which currently prohibit us from revealing the names of some other people who participated in this activity,” her office said in a statement.

Neither Fina nor Kane commented to the Inquirer for its story.