Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Ex Democrat attorney general sentenced to jail, then cuffed in court

Ex-attorney general sentenced to jail, then cuffed in court

 

Former state Attorney General Kathleen Kane leaves court in handcuffs after her sentencing at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., Monday, Oct. 24, 2016. Kane is sentenced to 10-to-23 months in county prison and 8 years probation. In August, Kane was found guilty of felony perjury and an assortment of misdemeanors related to a leak of secret grand jury materials.   (Dan Gleiter/PennLive.com via AP, Pool) 
 
Former state Attorney General Kathleen Kane leaves court in handcuffs after her sentencing at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., Monday, Oct. 24, 2016. Kane is sentenced to 10-to-23 months in county prison and 8 years probation. In August, Kane was found guilty of felony perjury and an assortment of misdemeanors related to a leak of secret grand jury materials. (Dan Gleiter/PennLive.com via AP, Pool)
 
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Former state Attorney General Kathleen Kane, once a rising star in state politics, left a courtroom in handcuffs on Monday after getting a 10- to 23-month sentence for a retaliation scheme a judge linked to her all-consuming ego.

Kane, 50, also was sentenced to eight years of probation by a Montgomery County judge, who said Kane's need for revenge led her to break the law and then lie to a grand jury. Kane, who was accused of leaking secret investigative files to embarrass a rival prosecutor, was convicted of perjury and obstruction.
Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy said Kane assumed an "off with your heads" mentality as she ran the state's top law enforcement agency. The judge called Kane a political "neophyte" who failed to make the transition from politician to public servant when she took office in 2013.

Kane, the first woman and first Democrat elected as the state's top prosecutor, was released Monday after posting $75,000 cash bail. She can remain free while her legal team appeals her conviction.

"I really don't care what happens to me," Kane told the judge. "There is no more torture in the world than to watch your children suffer and know you had something to do with it."

Kane had been a stay-at-home mother in the Scranton area and a former assistant prosecutor in Lackawanna County before using $2 million of her husband's trucking fortune to run for statewide office in 2012.
The judge told her: "Your children are the ultimate ... collateral damage. They are casualties of your actions. But you did that, not this court."
Kane didn't testify at her trial. She was convicted in August of two felony counts of perjury and seven misdemeanor charges, and she resigned the next day.

Earlier Monday, Kane's 15-year-old son, Chris Kane, pleaded for leniency while her former deputies described an office demoralized by her leadership and terrorized by "Nixonian espionage."

Kane argued that the loss of her career, law license and reputation was punishment enough. She had asked the judge to sentence her to probation or house arrest so she could be home to raise her sons. She and her husband are now estranged and share custody of the teenage boys.

The one-term attorney general said her younger son, 14-year-old Zachary Kane, did not attend Monday's sentencing because "he couldn't even bear it."
Prosecutors called her crimes "egregious" and pushed for jail time after the defense sought probation or house arrest. They said a paranoid Kane ruined morale in the 800-person office and the wider law enforcement community, burning bridges among state, local and federal agencies.

"Through a pattern of systemic firings and Nixonian espionage, she created a terror zone in this office," said Erik Olsen, a career prosecutor who's now the chief deputy attorney general.

Kane enjoyed mostly good press early on as she supported gay marriage, ramped up a child predator unit run by her twin sister and questioned her predecessor's handling of the Penn State child sex assault case. Kane's feud with one of the prosecutors, Frank Fina, who had helped run the Penn State probe and other sensitive investigations, led to the leak.

Kane, taking aim at Fina, had a campaign consultant pass confidential files to a reporter about a corruption case he had declined to charge before he left the office, authorities said. She then tried to frame someone else for the leak, aides testified.

Aside from the conviction, Kane's political career will be remembered for her investigation of pornography that she said was being traded on state computers by judges, lawyers and other public employees. Two state Supreme Court justices resigned amid the fallout.

District Attorney Kevin Steele, also a Democrat, said the jail term was a long time coming.

"She said, 'This was war,' and truth became a casualty," he said, quoting from a Kane email about her rivals.
___
Associated Press writer Megan Trimble contributed to this report.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can think of a few other AG's that also need to be locked up for the crimes and even treasonous acts of contempt and arrogance.
The entire system is corrupt to the bone and beyond.

Anonymous said...

This is the way Grand Juries operate, especially federal juries. The evidence is supposed to be presented to the jury and the prosecutor is not supposed to influence their decision. In federal cases, the prosecutor guides the jury to a decision, while the defense has no chance to do the same. In many documented cases, the jury foreman's signature was forged on the concurrence form. That form is supposed to be part of the official record, but is most often kept by the prosecutor and not available to the defense. Go to the court clerk sometime and ask for a copy of the AO 190 form. It will probably not be available, as are most other documents in the case. Like all other parts of justice in America, the Grand Jury system is full of fraud.

marie said...

SO I WANTED TO SEE IF THEY HAD A COURT PROCEEDING BECAUSE I WANT TO SEE A CORRUPT OFFICIAL CUFFED AND JAILED FOR CRIMES COMMITTED. I WENT TO YOUTUBE AND PASTED THE NAME OF THIS ARTICLE IN THE BOX AND PORNO CAME UP...VERY GRAPHIC PORNO. I WAS STUNNED AND STARTED LAUGHING. THEN IT SUDDENLY DISAPPEARED. I THOUGHT THIS IS A FLUKE. BECAUSE IT SAID THAT THERE WERE 15 VIDEOS TO WHAT I HAD PUT IN THE BOX I PUT IT IN AGAIN AND IT WAS A GUY TALKING ABOUT KANE AND HOW SHE WAS RELEASING GRAPHIC EMAILS WHICH INVOLVED I THINK THREE STATE SUPREME COURT JUSTICES AND ANOTHER GUY ALL OF WHOM HAD TO STEP DOWN DUE TO THE SCANDAL. I TRIED TO GO TO THE NEXT VIDEO AND EVERYTHING WAS GONE. I BELIEVE THAT WAS HER IN THE PORNOGRAPHIC VIDEO WHICH LITERALLY FLASHED BEFORE MY EYES AND THERE WERE MANY MORE...IT SAID FIFTEEN VIDEOS. SHE WAS RELEASING HER SEXUAL TAPES WITH THESE PEOPLE I BELIEVE. VERY FUNNY. SHE TOOK OTHER CORRUPT OFFICIALS DOWN WITH HER...FUNNY.

marie said...

Raw video: Watch the Kathleen Kane news conference

https://youtu.be/InrkrTTA-Pw?list=PL4dLfGyM6vu1z2VSkeVMgxAfsQBjMTQVV

Anonymous said...

LAXY KATHLEEN CAN BE THANKED IN PRISON FOR HER SERVICES...

THANKS FOR BRINGING DOWN ANOTHER FOUR TO FIVE CORRUPT ROBBERS, AKA THIEVES WHO HAVE DEFILED THE ACTUAL SUPREME COURT WITH THEIR CRAP!!

Anonymous said...

Indeed- And another 2.6 million to go-