Her blog at www.phylliskae.com has tackled Charlie Sheen, Camden police layoffs, cyberbullying, and, inevitably, that certain member of Congress from Brooklyn, N.Y. (the headline: "Liar, Liar Pants on Fire Anthony Weiner").
"Ethics is certainly about right and wrong, but there are personal judgments involved, too. It's not one size fits all," says the high-octane Woodbury resident, offering me a Danish at her downtown Camden headquarters.
Named for the late Robert DePersia, Kae's longtime friend and business partner, her building on Market Street has offices upstairs for lawyer Russell DePersia, Robert's son. A stray cat named Bailey reigns in Kae's suite on the first floor, where a photo on the wall shows her working undercover wearing a nun's habit.
"I really believe we can all live better through ethics," Kae says, eyes intense, like her lipstick. "I believe ethics can change lives. It changed mine."
Kae grew up Phyllis Krichev in East Camden, in the days when Baird Boulevard held the homes of the city's elite. Her father owned a grocery store at Eighth and Ferry, and her mother - "my role model" - rose from a clerk to a manager at the Camden Housing Authority.
Not long after graduating from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1963 ("I never went to college"), Kae fell ill with an autoimmune condition that threatened, then derailed, her life.
Being told at 19 that she was likely to die taught Kae a thing or two about perseverance. "Never give up," she says. "Never."
Kae eventually recovered and went to work in the office of Camden County Freeholder Director M. Allan Vogelson. In 1975, she became one of a handful of female investigators in the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.
