LEGAL INTELLIGENCER: ..Over the course of two elections, [Justice Seamus P.] McCaffery’s campaign paid more than $14,000 to Court of Judicial Discipline Judge Carmella Mullen and her husband, James Mullen, for providing campaign support, according to campaign finance reports. Eakin’s four ethics charges stem from the same email scandal that had surrounded McCaffery when he stepped down from the bench in October 2014, just one week after Eakin made public a threat he said McCaffery made against him.
McCaffery allegedly threatened to release information linking Eakin to the scandal unless Eakin pressured then-Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille to retract statements he had made about McCaffery. In a concurring opinion to a Supreme Court order suspending McCaffery, Castille said the threat “border[ed] on criminal conduct.”
William Costopoulos, one of Eakin’s attorneys, said he believed the financial relationship between McCaffery and Carmella Mullen violates the Code of Judicial Conduct. He said he will take under advisement whether or not to file a motion seeking Mullen’s recusal from the case, which is set for trial in Philadelphia beginning March 29… (more)
EDITOR: More evidence of why Pennsylvania is ranked as the fifth most corrupt state in the nation. Bill Keisling has been writing about the corruption for two decades. Finally others are paying attention as an offshoot of the prosecution, or perhaps better said, persecution of Kathleen Kane.
