Sep 27, 2015 3 min read

HARRISBURG – Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane hired her sister to lead the agency’s new child predator unit in 2013, even though her sister spent the previous five years working on civil cases as a low-level state prosecutor and was out of compliance with her legal training, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Ellen Granahan’s promotion came with a 20 percent raise when she was hired to lead a separate unit created to prosecute adults trolling the Internet and streets for children, The Morning Call of Allentown reported. Her salary is now $88,509, according to public records cited by the newspaper.

The state Ethics Commission investigated, acting on a request by state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler. It found Granahan’s hiring broke no rules, according to records obtained by The Morning Call.

However, the Ethic Commission’s chairman, John J. Bolger, wrote to Kane in January 2014 and told her Granahan’s selection created suspicion because Kane’s office had not established criteria to fill the vacancy.

“The selection process, coupled with a lack of documentation establishing the criteria used to fill the vacancy concerning the chief deputy attorney general of the Child Predator Section, created a perception that the promotion of your sister was not free of your influence,” Bolger wrote.

In an October 2013 letter, Kane’s top deputy then, Adrian R. King Jr., told the commission he chose Granahan, 49. She was the most qualified candidate because of her prior experience as an assistant district attorney in Lackawanna County, King wrote.

Four months after Granahan’s promotion, the state Supreme Court issued an order in which it threatened to suspend Granahan’s law license unless she completed mandated education classes within 30 days, The Morning Call reported. Granahan complied.

Granahan’s unit handled 281 cases between April 26, 2013, and Sept. 15, the newspaper reported. Granahan was responsible for six, according to a Morning Call analysis of office news releases and county court records.

Chuck Ardo, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office, said Granahan’s caseload is low because she oversees each case handled by the unit’s attorneys instead of handling day-to-day prosecutions.

The last 18 months have been rocky for Kane. After an investigation lasting more than a year, she was charged Aug. 6 with perjury, obstruction and other charges for allegedly leaking investigative information to a newspaper to embarrass a former state prosecutor and then lying about it. Last week, the state Supreme Court ordered her law license suspended, creating the unprecedented situation of leaving the state’s top law enforcement official without the ability to act as a lawyer.