Former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane was sentenced by a Montgomery County judge on Monday to serve 10 to 23 months in prison for nine charges related to perjury, obstructing the administration of law and engaging in official oppression.
Kane had faced a maximum of 24 years in prison.
The 50-year-old Democratic lawyer told the judge during her pre-sentencing statement that she would “cut off my right arm” if she were ordered separated from her two teenage sons. She had asked the judge in the Philadelphia suburbs to sentence her to probation or house arrest so she could raise them.
She did not specifically apologize for her actions, but said she regretted how her decisions hurt state residents’ faith in the legal system.
Kane was convicted in August of leaking confidential grand jury information related to a 2009 probe to embarrass a political rival and then denying her actions. She resigned from public office a few days later.
The Pennsylvania state attorney had divulged information about her office’s investigation into the Philadelphia chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It was meant to hurt former state and Philadelphia prosecutor Frank Fina.
Kane was the first Democrat and first woman elected to the position of attorney general in Pennsylvania.
