Sen. Orie Waives Preliminary Hearing

September 27, 2011 10:14 AM

(Credit: KDKA)

Reporting Harold Hayes

Filed under

Local, News, Politics, Syndicated Local

Election Returns

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – State Sen. Jane Orie was scheduled to face a preliminary hearing Tuesday morning, but decided to waive it to trial.

According to her lawyer, they wanted to avoid a three-day preliminary hearing and are prepared to go to trial.

Jury selection for the trial will begin on Feb. 13.

Originally, the jury selection was to begin on Monday. However, since the forgery charges will now be part of the trial, the defense and prosecution needed time to file appropriate pretrial motions.

Last month, Sen. Orie was arrested and charged with 16 counts of forgery, perjury and tampering or fabricating evidence.

Sen. Orie allegedly submitted forged documents at her trial earlier this year. That proceeding ended in a mistrial.

The discovery of a forged signature on office documents led Judge Jeffery Manning to declare the mistrial in the original Orie case.

Sen. Orie and her sister, Janine, are also accused of illegally using the senator’s office for campaign work.

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Don E

Where are the handcuff ‘shots’ like when the Democrats were paraded with a set of handcuffs on? It was nice to see those Democrats arrested & convicted for abusing their power, I hope Ms. Orie suffers the same fate, She has thrown her whole staff ‘under the bus’ trying to save her own skin. I could see if it was just one staff member admitting that Ms. Orie knew darn well what was going on, but there have been like 15 or so, who admitted under oath, including her Chief Of Staff
that Ms. Orie not only knew it was going on, but encouraged it,
Jailhouse For Jane

Take your medicine Jane and stop wasting the tax payers money