Former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane arrives at the Montgomery County courthouse for her scheduled sentencing hearing in Norristown, Pa., on Monday. PHOTO: MATT ROURKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

By KRIS MAHER
WSJ

Former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane was sentenced Monday to 10 to 23 months in prison, in a rebuke for the state’s former top prosecutor following her recent conviction for engaging in a political payback scheme.

Ms. Kane, 50 years old, was convicted in Montgomery County Court outside Philadelphia in August on nine counts, including perjury and obstruction of justice, for leaking grand jury documents to a local newspaper in a bid to embarrass a political foe and for lying about it under oath.

An attorney for Ms. Kane couldn’t immediately be reached to comment.

Once viewed as a rising political star in the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania, Ms. Kane resigned as attorney general a day after she was convicted. Her law license had already been suspended. She had faced a maximum sentence of between 12 and 24 years in prison.

Before her sentencing, Ms. Kane’s lawyers had asked the judge for leniency. They had argued that probation and home arrest were adequate punishment and that Ms. Kane needed to be home to care for two teenage sons.

Prosecutors had sought a significant prison sentence, arguing that the facts in the case were “particularly egregious” and that Ms. Kane had shown no remorse.

Ms. Kane became the state’s first woman and Democrat elected as attorney general in 2013. Before she became embroiled in a criminal investigation and her tenure as attorney general was cut short, many political experts once thought Ms. Kane could someday run for governor or the U.S. Senate.

During her trial, Ms. Kane’s former political consultant said that in 2014 she asked him to turn over grand jury information to a Philadelphia Daily News reporter about a 2009 investigation handled by a former prosecutor in the Attorney General’s office to embarrass him. The consultant said Ms. Kane believed that the former prosecutor had previously planted a negative story about her.

Ms. Kane has said she was a victim of an “old boys’ network” in Pennsylvania and that the case against her was manufactured by former state prosecutors who wanted to prevent her from releasing offensive emails that would harm their careers.

Ms. Kane began releasing a trove of emails in 2014 that has embarrassed a number of state officials and forced several to step down, including two state Supreme Court justices.

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http://www.wsj.com/articles/former-pennsylvania-attorney-general-gets-prison-term-1477340509