If ever you ever find yourself missing the old-school experience of flipping through a porn mag, head up to the fourth floor of City Hall and grab hold of Frank Fina's binder full of nude women.
The state Supreme Court yesterday unsealed hundreds of pages of records connected to the looming criminal trial of state Attorney General Kathleen Kane, including pornographic emails that were sent and received by Fina when he was a state prosecutor.
Kane has long contended that the smutty images -- collected in a nearly 400-page binder in the Supreme Court's Prothonotary Office -- are crucial to understanding why she's in a legal bind.
We pause here to note that the story of Kane and Fina and the emails is convoluted and depressing, a bit like the plot of the second season of "True Detective" but featuring levels of political dysfunction almost too pathetic to be true.
Let's start with the porn, because that's probably why you've read this far.
After being sworn into office in 2013, Kane followed through on a campaign promise to re-examine the state's investigation into convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky, seeking to determine if the case had lagged under her predecessor, former Gov. Tom Corbett.
Office emails were collected and reviewed, including many sent, received and ultimately deleted by Fina and fellow prosector E. Marc Costanzo.
"In accordance with Kane's policy of public disclosure and transparency, those emails would soon be released to the public," Kane's legal team wrote in court filings last fall. "Personally and professionally, Fina would be ruined."
How bad could the emails be? Well . . . pretty bad. "FW: New Office Motivation Policy Posters," read the subject line of an email that Fina sent from his government account on May 21, 2009. Attached were several images. "Take advantage of every opening," read the caption of one photo, which showed a woman having anal sex. "Making your boss happy is your only job," read the caption of another, showing a pants-less woman on her knees, performing oral sex on a man.
A 2011 email from Fina to his colleagues included a collection of fake nude photos of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. "Rainbows: Not as gay as you might think," read the subject line of another photo series, showing a woman in striped underwear and stockings.
Some of the images were racially offensive, like one that showed a white man carrying a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken as he appears to struggle with two black men. "Bravery At Its Finest" was the caption on that one. Fina was on the receiving end of plenty of emails, too, including one in 2009 titled "Men in Training" that showed a little boy looking into a little girl's underwear./p>
In the court filings, Kane's attorneys describe Fina and Costanzo as "peddlers of pornography and obscenity depositing state paychecks," and accused both of lying to higher-ups about the nature of their emails. So, what do all of these graphic photos add up to? That remains to be seen.
Both Fina and Costanzo now work for District Attorney Seth Williams. In a statement yesterday, the D.A.'s office pledged to do a "thorough review" of the material. Williams did not respond to emailed questions about any prior knowledge he may have had about Fina's state emails.
A federal grand jury, incidentally, is investigating Williams' use of campaign money. His political-action committee, Friends of Seth Williams, last week intimated that Kane was to blame for the investigation into the D.A.
Why? Because shortly after Fina went to work for Williams, the Inquirer wrote about Kane's decision to not prosecute a handful of local pols caught accepting bribes from a lobbyist as part of a sting operation. Williams ultimately took on the case and successfully prosecuted it, but not before he and Kane took jabs at one another publicly.
Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman earlier this month said Kane blamed Fina for the sting case ending up in the Inquirer, leading the attorney general to allegedly orchestrate the leak of information about a stagnant 2009 grand jury investigation into former Philadelphia NAACP head J. Whyatt Mondesire -- a case that Fina worked on -- to the Daily News in retaliation.
Kane's legal team argued in documents unsealed yesterday that Fina orchestrated a grand jury investigation that ultimately determined Kane was responsible for the Mondesire leak. During a preliminary hearing Monday in Norristown, a Montgomery County judge ordered Kane held for trial on charges of perjury, criminal conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
Gerald Shargel, Kane's attorney, referenced Fina's extensive porn emails during the hearing, saying afterward that the "entire story" hadn't come out yet.
If Kane was hoping Fina's career would be destroyed when his porn stash saw the light of day, she might be right. But she might have cooked her own goose in the process.
A new Daily News/Franklin & Marshall College poll released yesterday found that 46 percent of Pennsylvania voters want her to resign, while 43 percent want her to continue serving. Of those who want her to resign, 52 percent said the Legislature should impeach her if she refuses.
Poll director G. Terry Madonna said the average voter probably doesn't understand the complexities of a scandal involving Kane, Fina, an undercover sting, corrupt lawmakers and Mondesire -- and, of course, a lot o' porn.
"How do you talk about the sting? How do voters understand Jerry Mondesire and the grand jury? You're inside so much," Madonna said. "There's no doubt she's in trouble, but at the moment you got to give folks some time to see how it all plays out."
If Kane follows through on her plan -- threat? -- to run for re-election, it could be a campaign for the ages, Madonna said.
"Politically, there are no commercials, no ads, but you have to think what next year's campaign would be like if she files," Madonna said. "Think about those commercials and all the stuff with the sting and Mondesire and pornographic emails. This stuff has a long way to play out."
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