Pennsylvania’s Top Prosecutor Pleads Guilty

Pennsylvania Atty. Gen. Ernest Preate Jr., a nationally prominent opponent of abortion rights who has campaigned as a tough-on-crime prosecutor, pleaded guilty Tuesday to a nine-year scheme of violating state election laws, which included soliciting $20,000 in secret, prohibited cash contributions from proprietors of illegal gambling businesses.

Preate, a Republican and leading contender for governor last year, pleaded guilty to one felony count of federal mail fraud in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg, Pa., and resigned the office he has held since 1989. Sentencing has not been scheduled. In the last decade only one other state attorney general in the nation has been convicted of a crime while in office.

Legal experts said federal sentencing guidelines virtually ensure a prison term for Preate.

In announcing Preate’s guilty plea, U.S. Atty. David Barasch, whose office investigated the case for five years, said that Preate had taken an oath “to enforce the very laws he was violating.”