Mails

Previously undiscovered e-mails by top Pennsylvania State University administrators formed the basis for the scathing report last month that took the school to task for its handling of the Jerry Sandusky scandal. This week, their impact will be felt for the first time in the criminal case against suspended university athletic director Tim Curley and former vice president Gary Schultz. Defense lawyers for both men are expected in a Dauphin County courtroom Thursday for the pair's first hearing on charges of perjury and failure to report abuse since last year.

Prosecutors in the trial of former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo abruptly abandoned plans to call a key witness yesterday after learning that he had sent thousands of e-mails to Fumo and others. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert A. Zauzmer said the witness, Leonard P. Luchko, who had been a top computer technician for Fumo, also posted comments via the Web site philly.com on Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News stories about the trial. The surprising development caused a temporarily halt in the trial, which is set to resume this afternoon with testimony from a computer technician from Fumo's Harrisburg office.

For some inmates, prison is transformative. Behind bars, they become remorseful, newly humble, introspective. Vince Fumo is not that inmate. From the federal prison camp in Ashland, Ky., the former Democratic powerhouse has been sending out e-mails full of rage, self-justification, and promises to settle scores. In short, vintage Vince. In an 86-page court filing Friday, the U.S. Attorney's Office made public a massive cache of Fumo e-mails over the last six months in which he lashed out at the federal prosecutors who pursued him, the jury that convicted him, and the reporters who dug into him. In the e-mails, Fumo attacks a host of former allies he thinks betrayed him - and dismissed his offenses as "my so-called crime.

FOR TWO PEOPLE who claimed to be "friends," former CBS3 anchor Alycia Lane and married NFL Network anchor Rich Eisen exchanged some pretty flirty e-mails in 2006 and 2007, according to documents filed last week in Common Pleas Court by CBS Broadcasting. In one, Lane remembered their night at the Astor Hotel restaurant in Miami and a nearby curb where there was "lots of fun. " In another, Eisen recommends a bar in Los Angeles, where he lives, "especially if I'm the arm candy.

Question: I am 44, divorced three years. My girlfriend was in a relationship that ended four years ago because of his inability to commit, two weeks before she was to marry him. My ex had numerous affairs and I found out about two affairs through e-mails and texts that she (ignorantly or purposely) left for me to find. I love my girlfriend and trust her more than anything in the world, which I never would have thought possible after my divorce. But she thinks it is fine to contact her ex-fiance, as they are just friends and have a history together.

Exiled Audenried High School English teacher Hope Moffett e-mailed some of her students from the district's "rubber room" yesterday as they take their state standardized tests. "I heard reports that there were a few disruptions during testing and I want you to be reminded and to remind the other students that I'm fighting my battle and I want you to fight yours," Moffett wrote. "Tell everyone you see that I want to see you graduate from a school that is not failing and I don't want anyone in this city to have a reason to call you failures.

In a decision lending support to plaintiffs' lawyers in a massive pollution lawsuit against Chevron, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Wednesday reversed a lower-court ruling that the Philadelphia law firm of Kohn, Swift & Graf P.C. must disclose e-mails and other confidential communications it had in connection with the case. The appeals court sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois in Philadelphia, saying there must be evidence linking the Kohn firm to fraud before the firm must disclose communications with its experts in the case and other lawyers.

If you're looking for an entertaining and innovative three-week diversion, and if you have a computer, The Daughters of Freya - written by two longtime friends, Michael Betcherman, a Toronto author and filmmaker, and David Diamond, a California author and journalist - might be just the pastime for you. It's a "real-time" mystery, written as e-mails between the characters, and sent, in four or five short daily installments, to your in-box. The story starts when you subscribe - sort of the high-tech equivalent of a serialized novelette.

In another blow to State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, a computer technician who prosecutors said carried out an electronic cover-up for Fumo has agreed to plead guilty and is expected to testify against his former boss. Leonard P. Luchko, 51, who worked in Fumo's South Philadelphia office, is scheduled to plead guilty on Monday before a federal judge, according to a document filed yesterday in U.S. District Court. Luchko and another computer technician are charged with systematically deleting e-mails and other potential evidence from computers used by Fumo and Fumo aides as well as by staffers at a key nonprofit organization that figured in the federal investigation.

Six employees of Delaware County's domestic relations department were fired yesterday, weeks after they were suspended for exchanging pornographic e-mails on their workplace computers. The six, all unionized employees who worked as hearing or bench warrant officers, were fired for "inappropriate and unprofessional use of their computers on county time," said County Personnel Director Leonard Maloney. The six had been suspended without pay earlier this month after the messages were found on their terminals.