About That Oath

Much like in the case of the PSU 3, the critical evidence supporting AG Kane's perjury charges is of questionable origin.

By

Ray Blehar

The PA Corruption Network's Playbook, (December 29, 2015) outlined how corrupt prosecutors use dubious evidence to make cases against targets.  

For the PSU 3, it was emails of dubious provenance that provided the (alleged) evidence of perjury and other crimes.  

Ferman's smoking gun will be undone

For Pennsylvania Attorney General (AG) Kane, it was an oath of similarly dubious provenance that is now being portrayed by the Corruption Network as the smoking gun evidence against Kane.

Let's rewind the clock and see how that went down.

On August 6, 2015, then Montgomery County District Attorney, Risa Ferman threw more than her fair share of admiration toward the investigators and prosecutors -- who regurgitated much of the evidence from the grand jury --to craft the initial Kane charges.

"The investigators and prosecutors alike, they were meticulous. They were thorough. They were detailed, and this investigation was as comprehensive as any we've ever done."

According to the August charging documents, Kane had allegedly committed perjury and false swearing regarding four things she stated under oath (see below).

The evidence supporting the allegations was mostly based on the testimony of Bruce Beemer, James Barker, and Adrian King -- all of whom seemingly have motivations to take down AG Kane.  

As is typically the case with prosecutor's documents, evidence in favor of the prosecutor's version of events (e.g., Kane is lying and leaked information to get back at Fina) is included while the evidence against is excluded.  

But no matter how much the charging documents talk around the subject of who leaked the grand jury information,  the fact is that Ferman admitted she couldn't directly link AG Kane to the documents released.  

After that, all the rest is bluster.

That's why Ferman needed something else...

Ferman's investigators and prosecutors weren't as thorough as she said they were

   

The Secrecy Oath

On September 17, 2015, Ferman's "meticulous" gang of investigators made a visit to an undisclosed office in Strawberry Square and allegedly found an oath that they had not previously found in their other (meticulous and thorough) forays into the AG's office. 

  

To be fair, the investigators were probably searching for a document that looked somewhat official and were likely thrown off by the very unofficial secrecy oath document.  

The allegedly official "SECRECY OATH" document is about as official looking as Saddam Hussein's "Baby Milk Plant" sign that was fabricated and planted after his chemical weapons facility was bombed.

Prior to the stunning discovery of the oath, the "meticulous" investigative team was seemingly content to use the  grand jury testimony (page 15) of James Barker to allege Kane lied about not being covered by secrecy regarding the Mondesire grand jury.

Barker,who was called to testify on three occasions, stated that there is an implied ongoing obligation to keep grand jury information secret even after the grand jury is no longer in session.  




Consistent with Barker's testimony,  Kane testified that she had all of those newly hired by her office sign grand jury secrecy oaths for ongoing grand juries but not oaths for prior grand juries.  

Six weeks later, the Ferman investigators got a tip to take another look into they previously searched.  

Anonymous tip.  Where have we heard that before?

After finding the oath, King, among others, corroborated the meeting took place and oaths were signed.  The actual language in the presentation, however, is deceptive because neither King nor anyone else made any specific reference to signing oaths pertaining to previous grand juries.  

Given the PA Corruption Network's history with the PSU 3 case, it's not going out on a limb to float the idea that the oath document and related information were fabricated and planted.   

Kane and Shargel: Didn't crumble when
faced with dubious evidence about oath

Part of the Network's playbook is to present surprise evidence to the unsuspecting targets (and their  attorneys), who believe that their legal adversaries are actually playing by the rules. In that moment, the network's attorneys hope that the target or his/her legal counsel believe they have been caught red-handed and opt for a plea deal.

That didn't happen with Kane, just like the "flip" -- that Fina hoped for  -- didn't happen in the PSU 3 case.

The 2009 oath is hardly a smoking gun -- it's more like a boomerang.

A boomerang that will eventually come back and strike Judge Risa Vetri Ferman.