PHILADELPHIA _ In his closing arguments Monday, a lawyer for Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane portrayed her two chief accusers as liars "who will say whatever they need to protect themselves."
Defense attorney Seth Farber told a Montgomery County jury that the testimony of former first deputy Adrian King and political consultant Josh Morrow were contradictory, Farber said.
"You would not even buy a used car from either one of them," Farber said.
Both King and Morrow testified to Kane's alleged leaking of grand jury evidence to discredit former state prosecutor Frank Fina.
In fact, Farber said, King and Morrow were responsible for the leaks and wrongly blamed Kane to protect themselves.
Farber said Morrow wanted revenge on Fina even more than Kane did.
"While Ms. Kane is clearly no fan of Frank Fina, she was not the one who was obsessed with him," Farber said.
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele will make the prosecution's closing case.
Kane is on trial for perjury and obstruction charges.
On Friday, Kane told the court she would not testify and her defense team rested without calling any witnesses or presenting any evidence.
The jury of six men and six women is to begin deliberating Kane's fate after hearing closing arguments from both sides and receiving instructions from Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy.
Prosecutors are expected to tell jurors that their charge that Kane leaked secret grand jury material and later lied about it under oath was corroborated by a stream of witnesses, phone records, text messages, emails, and other evidence.
Kane, 50, is charged with perjury, obstruction, conspiracy and other crimes. Prosecutors say she illegally leaked secret documents to the Daily News because she wanted revenge against former state prosecutor Frank Fina.
In the trial, several former and current aides testified against Kane, including Morrow, who described planning a cover-up with her.
Witnesses described Kane as "extremely upset" and "unhinged" after the Inquirer reported in March 2014 that she had shut down an undercover corruption investigation led by Fina. She blamed Fina for the story, her former aides said, and wanted revenge.
When the Daily News published a story based on the leaked documents, which detailed a 2009 investigation that Fina had shut down, Kane's former top deputy, Bruce Beemer, testified he was concerned about the leak. When he approached Kane, he said, she told him, "Don't worry about it."
Morrow testified that he leaked the documents to the Daily News at Kane's request. He described publicly for the first time how he continued lying and changing his story to protect Kane until days before the trial.
Kane's lawyers insist she had no direct involvement in the illegal leak of confidential documents from a 2009 investigation of a Philadelphia civil rights leader, J. Whyatt Mondesire _ documents that prosecutors say she believed would suggest that Fina looked the other way about Mondesire's alleged misuse of state money.
