By Dick Miller
WE.CONNECT.DOTS: September 6, 2015 – Every reporter writing about PA Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s trickle release of pornographic emails has favorite stories that either can or cannot be printed.
My two favorites concern Glen Parno and Frank Noonan, both high-placed operatives for former Gov. Tom Corbett when he was both attorney-general and occupied the executive office.
Trinity Industries closed a large railcar building plant in Greenville, Mercer County, around the turn of the century, ending good employment for about 1,500 workers.
The first chapter of this story begins when I became Mayor of the small borough in 2006. I learned that Corbett as attorney general was responsible for negotiating an agreement for Trinity to environmentally restore the contaminated land to use.
Parno was in charge of the A-G division for environmental crimes and was point person for the Trinity pact. For almost a year I lobbied Parno to protect the borough in the clean-up process. The agreement would allow Trinity to avoid criminal prosecution, something that could have caused the manufacturer with 70 plants to lose Federal contracts.
Parno assured me that he would in conversations I had with him at least once a month. At the end of a year of negotiations I learned that language had been inserted in the pact to the effect that “the Borough of Greenville nor any of its residents could be a party to this agreement.” The judge presiding over the signing and implementation told me to go back home.
Today, a decade later, the property still has not been certified for re-use. I lost count of the delays Trinity asked for and always received. Trinity lobbyists contributed to both attorney general and gubernatorial campaigns of Tom Corbett.
In a story dated Oct. 2, 2014, the Allentown Morning Call reported Parno’s resignation from government. By that time, he had moved over to deputy chief counsel of Corbett’s Department of Environmental Protection. “Some (pornographic) emails in the Parno file showed banter among him and other recipients,” the Morning Call said.
Minimum satisfaction because the following month Corbett lost re-election to Tom Wolf and the job exodus escalated.
State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan was a different story.
He was a division chief under Corbett in the A-G office and became top state cop when Corbett took over as Governor in January, 2011. In various press accounts, Noonan was said to have been the recipient of at least 300 pornographic emails from 2008 to 2010.
Corbett announced that his investigation revealed that Noonan “did not participate in opening, originating, forwarding or replaying to any message.” He completed his four-year service for PSP. Media did not question Corbett’s explanation.
That defense was almost as unbelievable as one by Chief Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery. (A third favorite story, but who is counting?)
In resigning, McCaffery said “While I have no recollection of the specific accounts described by the media, I accept full responsibility for any lack of judgment I may have exhibited in 2009.”
When General Kane began to “trickle release” the pornographic emails in 2014, speculation mounted that the authors and transporters could subject some of these “big-wigs” to criminal charges. This appears to have been a joke at Harrisburg watering holes.
By resigning, McCaffery removed any possibility of losing his six-figure pension.
Bottom Line: Titillating!
