Former Attorney General Kathleen Kane was sentenced to 10 to 23 months in prison Monday. The sentencing followed a jury trial in August where Kane was found guilty of perjury, obstruction, and other charges.
Kane has been the villain (or tragic hero, depending who you ask) of the daytime soap opera that is Pennsylvania state politics for a few years now. She was elected attorney general in 2012, vowed to fight the old boys club, and then ended up being accused of misconduct herself. From our article last year covering her charges:
Kane, the state’s highest-ranked law enforcement officer, is accused of surreptitiously leaking grand jury testimony to the media to embarrass another prosecutor whom she considered a rival, lying under oath about the leak to the media, and forcing aides to illegally access computer files about the investigation against her.
Such egregious behavior is actually unsurprising. Kane has a history of using her office to intimidate critics and adversaries, and has allegedly both opened investigations out of revenge and dropped serious charges when politically beneficial.
This latest Machiavellian misconduct resulted in nine criminal charges, including perjury, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and abuse of office, among others.
Kane's antics as attorney general caught many in their net—from Philadelphia DA Seth Williams to multiple Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justices, and even her twin sister. She lost her bar license earlier this year but still refused to resign.
Kane faced 12 to 24 years in prison, the New York Times reports, but "her lawyers argued that the loss of her career and reputation was punishment enough."
During her sentencing hearing yesterday, her son requested mercy for his mother. “My mom is like my rock. We just know that we can’t lose our mom,” said her son Chris, 15, according to the Times.
Kane also asked the Judge for leniency. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:
A tearful Kane [urged] the judge to consider the impact on her sons.
"I would cut off my right arm if they were separated from me and I from them," she said. "Please sentence me and not them.
But [Judge Wendy] Demchick-Alloy was not swayed. "It's a shame that they had to go through all of this," she told Kane. "But that's a decision you made, not this court."
From the Times:
The case is about ego, ego of a politician consumed by her image from Day One," Judge Demchick-Alloy told Kane at the end of a five-hour hearing in Norristown. "And instead of focusing solely on the business of fighting crime, the focus was battling these perceived enemies ... and utilizing and exploiting her position to do it."
Kane was taken out of the courtroom in handcuffs, but was out on bail within hours. (To add insult to her injury, she got back to her car only to discover she had received a parking ticket during her sentencing hearing.)
Kane will not have to start her prison sentence until all her appeals are exhausted, which could take months or even years.