Patrick Kane's Lawyer vs. the Erie County District Attorney

The district attorney who oversees the rape investigation of Chicago Blackhawks superstar Patrick Kane, a prosecutor for almost three decades, comes from a high-profile political family in New York, runs an office with a 98 percent conviction rate, and is seriously mulling a bid for the state supreme court.

Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita III is as serious as they come, and the Chicago Tribune recently took a look at the man who would decide whether a hockey player who helped bring three Stanley Cup championships to Chicago will be prosecuted for rape.

Over 27 years as a prosecutor, Sedita has built a reputation both for being tough on sex crimes and for avoiding cases that could potentially backfire. Those two traits could collide in the Kane case, where the authorities are investigating a sexual assault complaint involving the popular Buffalo-born sports figure. The case already has drawn international media interest and sparked heated, often vicious, debate on social media, though Kane, 26, has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

» more via the Chicago Tribune

The 54-year-old Democrat is the son of a judge and grandson of a three-term Buffalo mayor. But he’s got a record of his own to stand on, too.

“In the courtroom, he is a really good trial attorney,” Kevin Spitler, president of the Bar Association of Erie County, told the Tribune. “He’s a three-ring-binder kind of guy.”

A woman has accused Kane of bringing her to his Buffalo-area home after a night of bar drinking, then overpowering her and raping her. Police said the woman had bite marks on her shoulders and a scratch on her leg. Immediately after leaving Kane’s house, the woman went to the hospital and called police.

Frank Sedita III and Paul Cambria

As the Erie County district attorney’s office methodically investigates, Patrick Kane’s lawyer, Paul Cambria, already is arguing his client’s case, now being tried intensely in the court of public opinion. He’s been getting into spats on Facebook over the case.

Cambria, who was in the same bar as Kane the night he was with the woman, would presumably be on the other side of the courtroom if this ever goes to trial.

Cambria, notes Deadspin, is also a longtime attorney for the porn industry.

After Buffalo sports blogger Alan Bedenko took issue with comments made by Patrick Kane’s driver, a Buffalo cop who begged off his shift on the night so he could drive Kane to local bars, Cambria opened up on Facebook with his own views. Bedenko, who is also an attorney, suggested in his blog that Kane’s friends and the accuser’s friends all stop talking to the press.

Replied Cambria (who was texting via mobile):

“What is your problem as a lawyer respect the process anyone who is an eyewitness has something important to say. What facts do you have to claim anyone was waisted if your going to comment be fair and be accurate Alan. Sorry but you are being irresponsible. You think an unidentified source who says one thing is relevant but the driver who was there who says the opposite is irrelevant. It’s becoming babble”

And later in the thread he writes:

“Well I can’t debate this all day I am working it’s the opposite lies hide people who tell the truth stand up and be counted ... Only the people there know the real skinny time will tell”

» more via Deadspin

The Tribune notes the “deliberative” Sedita will in all likelihood take Kane’s case to a grand jury, which means the investigation could go on for quite some time.

According to local lawyers, Sedita almost always sends high-profile investigations to a grand jury. In fact, Sedita sent Kane’s 2009 case – he and his cousin were arrested following a physical dispute with a cabdriver – to a grand jury, which voted to indict the men on misdemeanor charges instead of more serious felony counts.

» more via Chicago Tribune

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