Ex-Pa. Attorney General Kathleen Kane to be jailed by Thursday morning

HARRISBURG — Former state Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane must report to jail by Thursday morning to begin serving her sentence for convictions on perjury and other charges from abusing the power of her office in an attempt to smear a perceived political enemy.

Montgomery County Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy on Tuesday revoked Kane's bail and ordered her to report to the Montgomery County Correctional Facility by 9 a.m. Thursday to begin serving her 10-to-23-month sentence.

Kane, 52, who was convicted and sentenced in 2016, had remained free on bail while she pursued her state appeals.

But on Monday, the state Supreme Court refused to consider Kane's appeal of her conviction, exhausting her legal options.

Kane, the first woman and first Democrat elected as the state's top law enforcement officer, had asked the high court to hear her case after Superior Court earlier this year affirmed her conviction for perjury and leaking grand jury information. Kane had argued, among other things, that a special prosecutor who first built the case against her had lacked legal authority.

Neither Kane nor her lawyer, Joshua Lock, responded to multiple requests for comment.

A Montgomery County jury found Kane guilty of orchestrating an illegal news leak to damage Frank Fina, a onetime top prosecutor in the state Attorney General's Office.

Prosecutors had argued that Kane blamed Fina for a March 2014 story in the Inquirer that revealed that she had secretly shut down a sting investigation that had captured Democratic elected officials from Philadelphia on tape accepting envelopes stuffed with cash, money orders or gifts.

To exact revenge, Kane arranged a leak of grand-jury information related to a separate investigation that she believed showed Fina had failed to aggressively pursue corruption allegations.

After her conviction, Kane resigned from office and has kept a decidedly low profile. It is in stark contrast to the spotlight she enjoyed when she was elected attorney general in 2012. At the time, she was considered the Democratic Party's rising star, and her name was often floated for higher office.

Now, Kane will be joining about 400 other women imprisoned at the county jail near Norristown, where the daily routine includes headcounts, early meals, and visitors twice a week for two hours. She'll likely be behind glass for those visits, since the jail has stopped contact visits in response to the opioid crisis.

Warden Julio M. Agarin has said the prison would grant any request by Kane for special protection, given her status as a former law enforcement official. Such protection would include placing her in a cell with fewer inmates and guarding her as she moves about the jail.

Staff writer Craig R. McCoy contributed to this article.