Updated 7:36am The case against Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin continues Tuesday with the cross examination of a key witness who testified Monday that the suspended justice tried to cover up alleged campaign corruption in the office of her sister, former state senator Jane Orie.
Jamie Pavlot was chief of staff for Sen. Orie, when the Allegheny County district attorney began investigating in 2009 whether Orie and Melvin — then a Superior Court judge — were misusing their respective state-funded staffs to do campaign work.
Pavlot says Melvin told her in a phone call days after the investigation became known to remove any political documents from Melvin's 2009 Supreme Court campaign from files Pavlot took home from Orie's office.
Pavlot says she, instead, kept the files, gave them to her attorney and began cooperating with the government. She'll be questioned about that today.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.
