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Kane ordered to give e-mails

Judge facing ethics probe

HARRISBURG — A judicial ethics court has given Attorney General Kathleen Kane two weeks to provide records in a disciplinary case against Supreme Court Justice Michael Eakin after lawyers complained she did not respond to requests for a full set of his salacious and objectionable e-mails.

Judge Jack Panella of the Court of Judicial Discipline signed an order Thursday that set a Feb. 25 deadline to fulfill the Judicial Conduct Board’s demand for e-mails involving Eakin going back to 2008.

The subpoena was issued in mid-December by the board, which is pursuing ethics charges against Eakin over his e-mail practices. The subpoena seeks e-mails “which touch, reflect or concern” those sent to or from Eakin involving sexually explicit, misogynistic, ethnically insensitive, racist or homophobic material.

The board wrote to the court on Feb. 1 to say that Kane’s office had not responded.

In a “status report” to the court, board lawyers said they followed the court’s direction in issuing the first subpoena to Kane’s office on Dec. 11. The attorney general’s office refused to accept the subpoena on Dec. 14. The board then mailed a second subpoena but received no response.

Kane spokesman Chuck Ardo said the Judicial Conduct Board or the ethics court already has all of the Eakin-related materials in the attorney general’s possession.

Eakin, a Republican and former Cumberland County district attorney, faces trial next month in Philadelphia on charges his e-mail practices violated conduct rules for judges.

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