NORRISTOWN, MONTGOMERY COUNTY -- He was once a well known police chief in Dunmore. Now Pat Reese is charged with breaking the law.
Kathleen Kane's driver and close confidant faced criminal charges of his own in Norristown Tuesday morning.
Former Dunmore police chief Pat Reese is charged with contempt as he's accused of illegally snooping through office computers during a special grand jury investigation.
In court Tuesday morning, Pat Reese pleaded not guilty to the charges and has been released on $5,000 bond.
Prosecutors say Reese took an active role in what a prosecutor called an orchestrated cover-up of Kathleen Kane's alleged crimes.
Last week, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Ferman announced it was her offices own investigation that found former Dunmore police chief Pat Reese illegally sorted through emails sent to and from employees of the attorney general's office between September and December of last year.
Ferman said Reese was doing this to find out which workers in the attorney general's office were cooperating with a special prosecutor.
That prosecutor was investigating Kathleen Kane last year for allegedly leaking confidential information to a Philadelphia newspaper.
"Why didn't you cooperate with law enforcement?"
The head of Kathleen Kane's security detail, Pat Reese, did not answer that or other questions Tuesday morning as headed to a courtroom in Norristown, a Philadelphia suburb. There, he was arraigned on criminal charges.
His boss, the attorney general, was charged in Norristown on Saturday. She's accused of leaking confidential information to a newspaper and lying about it.
The Montgomery County prosecutor says Reese broke the law when he tried to interfere with a special grand jury that investigated Kane.
The former Dunmore police chief is described by prosecutors as a close confidant of Kane and paperwork shows workers in the attorney general's office nicknamed Reese 'the chief of staff.'
Pat Reese's specific charge is indirect criminal contempt.
Sources close to Reese say he believes he was just doing his job and did not commit any crimes.
On Wednesday, Kathleen Kane will hold a news conference in Harrisburg and answer questions for the first time since her arrest. Newswatch 16 will carry that news conference live Wednesday at 1 p.m. on both WNEP-TV and wnep.com.
There's already a move in Harrisburg to strip Kane of her license to practice law. If she lost her law license, Kathleen Kane could not serve as attorney general under commonwealth law.
