Today marks the first day of a trial of Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane. The trial concludes a four-year term ensnared in a web of allegations that have shaken the state government. Kane, 50, is being faced with charges of perjury and justice obstruction, and says she is completely innocent.
Kane is accused of leaking secret grand jury information in order to harm political rivals. The attorney general insists the charges against her are being brought as a kind of revenge, for when Kane investigated the Jerry Sandusky case, which dealt with child sexual abuse. While investigating, she also uncovered a trove of emails in which she claimed officials were found to have used government email accounts “to trade pornographic and bigoted images and jokes.” Her accounts instigated a string of firings, resignations and reprimands.
Prosecutors say Kane illegally released grand jury information in 2014, in an attempt to shame Frank Fina. Kane believed that Fina had provided a newspaper with information that embarrassed her. Fina was closely involved in the prosecution of Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach who was convicted of sexually assaulting boys in his charge. The information disclosed by Kane ended in Fina’s resignation.
Last spring, Kane had called the e-mails “critical to my defense.” Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy ruled that that Kane cannot claim to have been the victim of selective prosecution and that witnesses at the trial cannot mention the e-mail scandal.
Kane is the first woman and the first Democrat since 1980 to be elected for her job. Though her license to practice law has been suspended, she is still in office.
“I don’t plan on being convicted because I’m very confident in the jury system,” she said last month. “I’m confident that once the jury hears the entire truth, they will return a not-guilty verdict.” If convicted of the most serious charge, Kane would face up to seven years in prison and be removed from office.
