Ex-Pennsylvania AG loses appeal of perjury conviction, faces jail time
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane was sentenced to 10 to 23 months in jail for illegally disclosing details from a grand jury investigation to embarrass a rival and lying about it under oath. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) (The Associated Press)
Pennsylvania’s former top state prosecutor is likely to soon find herself behind bars, more than two years after being convicted and sentenced for leaking grand jury information and lying about it.
The state Supreme Court announced Monday it will not review former state Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s conviction, and the Montgomery County district attorney’s office said it will ask a judge Tuesday morning to revoke her bail.
The justices will not reconsider Kane’s claims she was not properly convicted of two counts of felony perjury and seven misdemeanor charges, including obstruction and conspiracy.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Kane, 52, a Democrat, has been out on $75,000 bail since her October 2016 sentencing to 10 to 23 months in jail.
A spokeswoman for the prosecutors’ office in suburban Philadelphia said the defense and prosecution could agree on when she should report to the county lockup, or the judge could set a date or order her to report immediately.
Kane’s defense lawyer, Joshua Lock, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A three-judge Superior Court panel previously upheld her conviction, ruling in part that her defense was not entitled to use evidence of a pornographic email scandal or the Jerry Sandusky child molestation case that her former office prosecuted.
While running for the office, Kane was critical of how the office handled the Sandusky investigation at Penn State, creating resentment among some of the lawyers who had worked on it. After secret grand jury information about another investigation was leaked to a newspaper, two of the attorney general’s office’s former prosecutors alerted a Montgomery County judge, and he appointed the special prosecutor who investigated Kane.
Superior Court had said Kane cited baseless reasons in asking to use evidence of the pornographic emails, a scandal that rocked the state’s judicial community and the attorney general’s office in particular and led to the resignation of two Supreme Court justices.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The lawyers who contacted the judge about grand jury leaks, former state prosecutors Frank Fina and Marc Costanzo, were also implicated in the pornographic email scandal and played key roles in Sandusky’s prosecution.
Superior Court said earlier this year the trial judge was correct to decide “the probative value of evidence of pornographic materials discovered in Attorney Fina’s and Attorney Costanzo’s OAG email accounts was speculative and inadmissible” and that evidence of the Sandusky investigation was irrelevant.
Superior Court also ruled against her claims that all Montgomery County judges should have been prevented from handling her case, that evidence against her was illegally obtained and that she was the victim of selective and vindictive prosecution.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Kane was the first woman and first Democrat elected as the state attorney general. She resigned in 2016 after her conviction.