Judge warns Orie brother to stay quiet about case

A judge yesterday warned the brother of state Sen. Jane Orie to stop talking about his sister's corruption case in violation of a gag order, but after some legal wrangling the judge didn't take any further action.

"I'm like the father of quibbling children," Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey A. Manning said in dressing down Jack Orie and also criticizing the district attorney's office for releasing a search warrant to the media earlier this week. "I don't care who started it. I just want it to stop."

Judge Manning had ordered Mr. Orie, 60, a McCandless lawyer, to appear before him to explain why he shouldn't be held in contempt of court for violating a Dec. 15 gag order prohibiting parties in his sisters' trial from speaking about it publicly.

The contempt order pertained to a story in Tuesday's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in which Mr. Orie accused the district attorney's office of falsifying documents that led to a mistrial last week in the case against Ms. Orie and another sister, Janine, an aide to a third sister, state Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin.

Judge Manning halted the trial during jury deliberations after declaring that several documents introduced by the defense had been doctored.

Mr. Orie told the Trib that he believes the prosecution team altered the documents to deliberately cause a mistrial because the district attorney's office knew they were going to lose their case against the Ories, who are charged with using state-paid staffers for election campaign work.

The district attorney's office did not respond directly to that accusation but released a copy of a search warrant to take custody of dozens of defense exhibits in the Orie case and turn them over to the U.S. Secret Service for analysis. The warrant indicates that investigators are seeking evidence to charge someone on the defense team with perjury, tampering with evidence and other offenses.

Mr. Orie did not speak at yesterday's hearing, but his lawyer, Ron Barber, argued that Mr. Orie wasn't subject to the gag order because he was not a lawyer in the case and has a First Amendment right to speak on his sister's behalf. Mr. Barber also asked Judge Manning to remove himself from the hearing because the judge implicated the defense in declaring the fraud and in doing so increased the chances that pretrial publicity will hurt the Ories' ability to receive a fair trial next time.

The judge said he wanted to "ratchet down the rhetoric" in the case, but Mr. Barber said the judge himself was to blame for inflating it and asked why he was not subject to the same restrictions as Mr. Orie.

Judge Manning rejected the motion to remove himself from the case on the grounds that the gag order pertains to speech outside the courtroom.

"My comments were made right here," the judge said. "His were made out there somewhere."

The judge also pointed out that Mr. Orie did represent Jane Orie several times in the past as her lawyer and so was subject to the gag order. Mr. Orie also had claimed he didn't receive a copy of the order, but the judge said he was in the courtroom on Dec. 15 when it was issued and did get a copy.

In the end, Judge Manning said he would give Mr. Orie "the benefit of the doubt" and let him off with a warning -- but only once, he said.

He also said he was "concerned" by the district attorney's decision to release the search warrant to the media in response to Mr. Orie's criticisms instead of letting reporters dig up the document on their own. But again, he took no action, noting that the warrant was a public document.

First published on March 12, 2011 at 12:00 am