Charges have been announced against two Democrat state lawmakers from Philadelphia in a bribery probe Democrat state Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane previously declined to prosecute. Philadelphia Inquirer,
U.S. Rep. Robert Brady, the chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic Party, on Wednesday called state Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane “asleep at the switch” and said he had no faith in his fellow Democrat as the state’s top law enforcement officer…
Kane had been touted as a future governor or U.S. senator, but many Democrats are now wondering if she should be reelected in 2016…
Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, also a Democrat, sharply criticized Kane on Tuesday, saying she had irresponsibly and without evidence asserted that the undercover investigation that led to the lawmakers’ arrests had been tainted by racism. The elected officials caught on tape accepting money are African American.
State Reps. Vanessa Lowery Brown, 48, and Ronald G. Waters, 64, were charged with bribery and other offenses Tuesday in a case that Kane had ridiculed as “half-assed” and “dead on arrival.”
Williams said both lawmakers admitted to grand jurors that they illegally pocketed cash from an undercover informant who was secretly taping them. Waters accepted $8,750 in nine payments, he said, and Brown accepted $4,000 in five installments.
The sting targeted five Philadelphia officials, all Democrats. One, Thomasine Tynes, a former Traffic Court judge, pleaded guilty Wednesday to accepting a $2,000 bracelet from the operative.
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