Former Pennsylvania attorney general sentenced to prison for perjury

A Montgomery County judge ruled Monday that former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane will serve up to 23 months in prison and eight years of probation for leaking documents about a political rival. Kane, who was the first Democrat to be elected as Pennsylvania's top prosecutor, resigned in August, the day after she was convicted of two felony counts of perjury and seven misdemeanor charges.

Kane's downfall began when she sparked a feud with prosecutor Frank Fina, her predecessor as Pennsylvania's attorney general. After an article ran in the Philadelphia Inquirer detailing an investigation by Fina into politicians caught accepting bribes, Kane "vowed to wage 'war'" with him, CNN reported. To retaliate for the article, Kane leaked confidential grand jury documents to a reporter about a corruption case Fina was involved with before leaving office; she later lied under oath about doing so.

"This case is about ego — the ego of a politician consumed with her image from day one," Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy said, per The Associated Press. "This case is about retaliation and revenge against perceived enemies who this defendant ... felt had embarrassed her in the press."

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Kane was once considered a rising star in Pennsylvania's Democratic circuit. Her defense had argued a prison sentence was unnecessary given she had already lost her job and suffered irreparable harm to her reputation. She is in custody, and her bail is set at $75,000; she was sentenced to a minimum 10 months behind bars.