“It seemed we had somebody who felt she was above the law”, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele told reporters outside the courtroom after the verdict was delivered.
Advertisement
Suspecting a former state prosecutor leaked the story to the Inquirer, Kane sought payback and ordered aides to leak secret investigative information to the Philadelphia Daily News created to show that that prosecutor had never filed charges in a 2009 probe into a Philadelphia NAACP official, prosecutors said.
Kane showed little emotion as the verdict was read, according to the Associated Press.
Wolf said the charges are “unbecoming of the commonwealth’s top law enforcement officer”.
Once sitting as attorney general, Kane again made headlines when she announced – to much fanfare with the Constitution Center in Philly as a backdrop – that her office would not defend the state’s Defense of Marriage Act against a lawsuit brought by those looking to overturn it. But a judge barred Kane’s lawyers from mentioning the emails during her trial.
She now faces a maximum sentence of 28 years in prison, however a lesser sentence is expected. After Monday’s decision, Wolf said she resign immediately.
Kane has been convicted of perjury and other crimes, she does not have to resign as Pennsylvania’s top law enforcement official – at least not immediately. If Kane doesn’t have enough shame to have stepped down already, why leave now?
Kane has claimed she was targeted by former state prosecutors who sought to stop her from releasing sexually graphic and raunchy emails shared by several state officials.
But the first woman and first Democrat elected to attorney general in Pennsylvania squandered her early popularity. All of it, prosecutors argued, to carry out a vendetta against her political enemy. Jail time is possible. I implore Attorney General Kane to do what is right: “put the commonwealth’s residents first and step down from office”, he said. Last year, Kane’s law license got suspended, rendering the attorney general unable to practice as an attorney.
Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said, “I had called on (Kane) to resign previously”.
But if Kane doesn’t resign soon, the state Senate’s Republican majority leaders have threatened a vote to order her removal from office under a constitutional provision never used in modern history.
Kane’s top deputy, Bruce Castor is set to give a news conference in Harrisburg at 3:30 Tuesday afternoon to address questions regarding office operations.
Kane’s attorney vows a appeal.
Kane doesn’t have to resign immediately and could potentially stay in office through January 17, when a new attorney general will be sworn in.
After hearing days of dramatic testimony, a 12-person jury in Pennsylvania’s Montgomery County agreed with prosecutors, finding Kane guilty of two counts of felony perjury, as well as obstruction, false swearing and other misdemeanor charges.
Kane was accused of leaking grand jury secrets to embarrass a rival prosecutor, who she blamed for a critical news article.
Advertisement
The truth, as bluntly laid out by Montgomery County prosecutors, was much simpler than that.
