PITTSBURGH — A former intern for state Sen. Jane Orie, R-40th, whose district covers part of southern Butler County, saw another intern and other staff do campaign work for the lawmaker's sister, newly elected state Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

Jennifer Knapp Rioja said she reported what she saw to Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr., who has begun a grand jury investigation.

"I could rationalize all day and say, 'Don't look — you're not involved in it, you'll be fine,"' Rioja said. "But when they had another intern involved in it and she was afraid of rocking the boat ... I knew I had to do something."

The 26-year-old intern said she was given campaign materials for Judge Melvin when she staffed a table for Orie at a church festival in July. She also saw the senator's staff make name tags and produce letters for the judge's fundraisers and said the other intern researched local retirement homes where the judge's campaign materials could be distributed.

Rioja said one Orie staffer told her, "If the attorney general's office found out what we were doing, we'd all be led out of the office in handcuffs."

The intern said the staffer made that remark during Attorney General Tom Corbett's investigation of more than 20 people in an ongoing scandal involving the use of state employees and money for political work by state lawmakers.

Sen. Orie's attorney, Jerry McDevitt, announced last month Zappala had opened a grand jury investigation, calling it a "political hack job."

Orie has denied wrongdoing in a letter to the intern that the newspaper obtained. "At no time has any member of my staff engaged in any political activity during, or on official state working time," she wrote in the letter.

McDevitt said there is no evidence Orie directed the intern or her staff to do the political work.

The attorney said he filed a Right to Know request seeking records from Zappala's office to see if his staff campaigned for candidates the district attorney supports after county detectives seized the senator's computers looking for evidence of work done for her sister.

Zappala's office has declined to comment on the investigation or McDevitt's claims.