Attorney General Shapiro Puts Cost Of Kane 'Drama' At $3.6 Million
HARRISBURG, Pa. (CBS) -- Pennsylvania's new attorney general has come up with a preliminary estimate of $3.6 million for the total legal costs of what he termed the "drama" associated with the state's last elected attorney general, Kathleen Kane.
Appearing at a state Senate budget hearing, Attorney General Josh Shapiro said half of that $3.6 million dollars -- $1.8 million – went to an outside law firm review of tawdry emails. But Shapiro says another $877,000 was spent on legal fees to defend the office from employee lawsuits.
"This is an extraordinary amount, and completely incomparable to anything we could find from the Corbett/Kelly years or even before then," Shapiro said. "In addition to that, we found $791,000 in total costs to various settlements, $191,000 in costs – legal costs associated with representing employees at the Kane trial."
Shapiro says what he can't put a number right now on is the cost of what he called the "distraction" and "neglect" to the office.