Pennsylvania’s Top Prosecutor Is Now a Convict

Kathleen Kane faces prison time in grand-jury leak scandal, will resign as AG
By Linda Hervieux,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 16, 2016 5:36 AM CDT
Updated Aug 16, 2016 12:51 PM CDT
Pennsylvania’s Top Prosecutor Is Now a Convict
Penn. Attorney General Kathleen Kane faces prison time after being convicted of nine charges including perjury.   (Jessica Griffin/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP, Pool)

She was the first Democrat elected as Pennsylvania's attorney general, and hers was a seemingly limitless future in the Democratic Party. Now, the state's top prosecutor, Kathleen Kane, faces prison time after a jury convicted her Monday in a tawdry scandal that brought down several other state officials. Gov. Tom Wolf immediately called on Kane to step down, the New York Times reports, saying "the people of Pennsylvania deserve to move on." On Tuesday, Kane announced that she would do so, effective Wednesday, reports the AP. A jury found Kane, 50, guilty of nine charges including criminal conspiracy and two felony counts of perjury for leaking grand jury information and lying about it, PennLive reports.

Events that led to her downfall began after she was criticized in the media for shutting down an undercover probe of state Democratic officials. She schemed to discredit a prosecutor she blamed for embarrassing her—and she meant business. “This is war,” Kane vowed in an email, per the Times. The judge in the case warned her that "there is to be absolutely no retaliation of any kind." Kane, who did not testify in the four-day trial, faces more than 14 years in prison. Her defenders say her take-down was payback for rattling the establishment after her election in 2012. Kane’s law license was suspended last year after the criminal probe was announced. (Adding insult to injury, Kane was even being sued by her own twin sister.)

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