Ms. Kane, 50, took office in January 2013 as the first female Democrat elected attorney general in Pennsylvania. Farber argued that Kane wanted the public to know her predecessor had failed to act against a case involving a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People official, but she never allowed the leak of secret criminal files.
Advertisement
Fifty-year-old Kathleen Kane showed little emotion Monday night as the jury convicted her of all nine counts, including two felony perjury counts.
She was found guilty of leaking sealed court documents meant to embarrass a rival prosecutor, Frank Fina, who Kane believed had planted a news story claiming that she had ended a statehouse sting operation.
Kane had said the charges were brought to stop her from revealing lewd emails between judges, state officials and prosecutors that she discovered while looking into the Sandusky investigation.
Gov. Tom Wolf, a fellow Democrat, renewed his previous calls for Kane to step down.
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. Attorney Gerald Shargel led the defense team.
Earlier this year, a similar effort fell short of the two-thirds vote needed, but that was before Kane’s conviction. Her lawyers blamed the grand jury leak on former aides, saying they lied to the jury when they blamed Kane.
After the conviction, the judge overseeing the trial said she would jail Kane if she saw any sign of witness retaliation and ordered Kane to surrender her passport. Kane suspected that Fina had been responsible for a March 2014 report in the Inquirer that she had scuttled an investigation of six Philadelphia Democrats who’d been caught accepting bribes in a sting operation.
The top law enforcement official in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania has been convicted of several crimes after she leaked documents critical of a rival.
The verdict is guilty in the Kathleen Kane case.
Jurors deliberating criminal charges against Pennsylvania’s attorney general have asked to review her grand jury testimony as they weigh perjury and false-swearing charges against her.
“While there is no simple procedure to remove a civil officer, the Office of Attorney General and its employees, as well as the people of Pennsylvania deserve to move on”, Wolf said in the statement.
Prosecutor Michelle Henry called it a “sad day for the commonwealth” but said she’s glad “justice has been served”. It’s a move her defense attorneys say they do not regret.
Attorney General First Deputy Bruce L. Castor Jr., Montgomery County’s former district attorney and now serving as Kane’s top aide, was in the courtroom when the jury rendered its decision.
Advertisement
Kane remains free on bail and faces a sentencing hearing within 90-days.
