Porn-related e-mails turned over to top state judge
HARRISBURG — The attorney general’s office on Friday provided Pennsylvania’s chief justice with hundreds of e-mails after he sought any material that had pornographic content and related to any judge, a court system spokesman said.
Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts spokesman Jim Koval said Chief Justice Ron Castille met for three hours with a forensic investigator and received about 1,500 images and 65 video clips attached to the e-mails.
Koval said after those materials are reviewed, the Supreme Court will discuss them and consider taking action.
Castille sought the e-mails pertaining to judges after Attorney General Kathleen Kane disclosed publicly that dozens of current and former employees of the attorney general’s office sent or received e-mails with pornographic images and other explicit content.
Castille said in a letter to Kane last week that he wanted “any e-mails and pornographic materials relative to ‘any judicial officer,”’ defining the term as any justice, judge or district judge. Castille told Kane he considers it “a matter of utmost importance, which must be addressed immediately.”
Kane’s office found the e-mails during a review of how the office had handled the Jerry Sandusky child molestation case, which dates back to when Gov. Tom Corbett was attorney general.
She has released heavily redacted copies of e-mails sent or received by eight former employees of the office.
Environmental Protection Secretary Chris Abruzzo, Department of Environmental Protection lawyer Glenn Parno and part-time Lancaster County prosecutor Rick Sheetz have all resigned because their e-mails were released by Kane.
Kane has declined to release the names of current employees who forwarded or received the e-mails, citing confidentiality rules under union contracts, and because the state’s open records law does not require it.
