Lawyers for state Sen. Jane Orie and her sister today accused the Allegheny County District Attorney's office of leaking a Secret Service report about documents from their trial on corruption charges, though a spokesman for the District Attorney said last week that the report was released by the defense.
In a supplemental brief to his appeal of Ms. Orie's mistrial -- declared in March by Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Manning -- lawyer William Costopoulos also claimed that the Secret Service report "exonerated" Ms. Orie of fraud. According to the report, obtained Friday by the Post-Gazette, the Secret Service analysis was inconclusive.
Ms. Orie, a McCandless Republican, and her sister, Janine Orie, are charged with using public resources and employees in campaigns for the senator and a third sister, state Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin.
Their trial began in February, but prosecutors raised concerns that documents entered by the defense had been doctored, and Judge Manning declared a mistrial. Numerous documents were released to Secret Service forensic investigators, who analyzed the inks used in handwritten notes by Ms. Orie.
Mr. Costopoulos said that he discovered the Secret Service report existed while watching the television news, and claimed the leak "could only have come from the Commonwealth."
In a news release last week, District Attorney spokesman Michael Manko said the report had been disseminated by the defendant.
"It is important to note that the report has to be analyzed in conjunction with several other pieces of evidence which are not in the defendant's possession," Mr. Manko wrote in the release. "Failure to do so" could lead to uninformed or misleading conclusions, he said.
A lawyer for Janine Orie used Mr. Manko's statement as the basis for a motion today in Common Pleas Court, asking Judge Manning to compel the Commonwealth to release the "other pieces of evidence" Mr. Manko described.
"The report was not provided by the Commonwealth to defense counsel until May 6, 2011, after the report itself and a skewed version of its meaning were leaked to a local newscaster ..." James DePasquale wrote in the motion.
The sisters are scheduled to be tried again in October, but Jane Orie's lawyer has appealed the case to the state Supreme Court, seeking to bar her retrial on double jeopardy grounds.
First Published: May 9, 2011, 9:15 p.m.