HARRISBURG – A former attorney general in the US state of Pennsylvania has been 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.
Kathleen Kane, 50, was convicted in August of two felony counts of perjury and seven misdemeanor charges, and she resigned the next day.
As well as up to two years in the jail she will also undergo eight years probation, ruled a Montgomery County judge who said Kane’s ego drove her to take down enemies and break the law.
Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy said Kane assumed an ‘off with your heads’ mentality as she ran the state’s top law enforcement agency, the New York Times reported.
The judge called Kane a political ‘neophyte’ who failed to make the transition from campaigner to public servant after she took office.
Kane, the first woman and first Democrat elected as the state’s top prosecutor, was handcuffed in court and led out from a side door. She will remain in custody until she posts $75,000 cash bail, higher than she had previously posted.
After she posts bond, she will remain free while she appeals her conviction.
