Porno Email Scandal Forces 2 Top Pennsylvania Officials To Resign

Two top Pennsylvania officials who had worked under Gov. Tom Corbett resigned Thursday over emails containing pornography that were being exchanged between current and former employees in the office. The story broke a week ago when Attorney General Kathleen Kane's office identified eight ex-employees who had exchanged several pornographic images or videos in the emails, which were revealed during the review of the child sex prosecution of ex-Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky.

The two men who just quit are among the eight officials and were working under Corbett when he was the state attorney general from 2005 to 2011. The list from Kane's office also includes State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan. Corbett announced the resignations of Environmental Protection Secretary Christopher Abruzzo and Glenn Parno, a lawyer in the Department of Environmental Protection, just hours before the attorney general’s office was releasing the copies of the emails to the governor’s office and to the media, the Associated Press reported.

"While I have no recollection of the specific accounts described by the media, I accept full responsibility for any lack of judgment I may have exhibited in 2009," the 48-year-old Abruzzo wrote in his resignation letter, according to AP, adding: "I do not condone that behavior and it is not a reflection of the person or professional that I am."

Noonan, who received more than 300 of the emails, was cleared of the charges and Corbett said, according to AP, that the records showed that “he did not participate in opening, originating, forwarding or replying to any message."

The mails were circulated between 2008 and 2012, and Corbett reportedly requested details of the emails before he could decide if the men who are now working under him should keep their jobs. Kane, a Democrat, has criticized the Republican Corbett’s handling of the Sandusky prosecution when he was attorney general, Bloombergreported.

Corbett is up for re-election in November and is considered the most endangered incumbent governor in the country; he is badly trailing Democratic challenger Tom Wolf in polls.