Lawyer: Grand Jury Investigating Sen. Jane Clare Orie

[RamboLiberal]

PITTSBURGH -- A Pennsylvania state senator has hired a high-profile criminal defense lawyer who said detectives have searched her office and seized computers.

Defense lawyer Jerry McDevitt told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Wednesday night that Allegheny County detectives searched Sen. Jane Clare Orie's office Friday as part of a grand jury investigation. McDevitt said detectives with a warrant seized computers assigned to office staff, several laptops and the office computer server. He said Orie's own computer was left behind.

McDevitt said the investigation apparently began a day before the November election. He said an intern at the Republican senator's district office complained to the district attorney's office that political calls were being made there on behalf of state Supreme Court nominee Joan Orie Melvin, the senator's sister. Orie Melvin was elected to the state's highest court.

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/politics/22050507/detail.html

HARRISBURG -- Authorities seized thousands of computer records last week from a district office of Senate Majority Whip Jane Orie as part of an investigation by Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr.

Orie's lawyer, Jerry McDevitt, on Wednesday denounced the search as "an abuse of the prosecutorial process."

Orie, 48, of McCandless is the third-ranking member of Senate Republican leadership. She could not be reached for comment.

The subject of the investigation is not clear. Mike Manko, spokesman for the prosecutor, would not discuss it.

McDevitt, of the Downtown firm K&L Gates, blasted the seizure as "one of the most political maneuvers by a highly political district attorney" and said it was the first case he knew in which "a local district attorney invaded a state legislator's computer system."

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/regional/s_659204.html

[PADEMJES12]

1. wow and just in time for the holidays.....