Former state AG due in court for alleged probation violation

Pennsylvania’s former top law enforcement officer, who served jail time for leaking secret investigative files and lying about it, appeared in court Monday as she faced the prospect of more time behind bars after she was arrested for drunken driving in March.

Kathleen Kane, the first woman and first Democrat to be elected attorney general in the state, arrived for a hearing in Montgomery County Court on an alleged probation violation. She will appear before the same judge who sentenced her in the original leak case.

Once a rising star in Pennsylvania politics, Kane resigned as attorney general after being convicted in 2016 of perjury, obstruction and other counts for leaking grand jury material to embarrass a rival prosecutor. She served eight months of a 10-to-23-month sentence before being released in 2019.

On March 12, police in Scranton were called to the scene of a two-car crash and said they found Kane behind the wheel of an Audi.

Kane told responding officers she was a designated driver, but surveillance video showed Kane herself had been drinking alcohol at a Scranton restaurant shortly before the crash, according to an affidavit.

Kane had watery, bloodshot eyes and slurred her words — police said she had trouble saying the word “designated” — and failed a field sobriety test, the documents said.

Kane was charged with drunken driving and careless driving. Four days later, a Montgomery County judge issued a bench warrant for her arrest on the alleged probation violation. Kane is on probation until October 2025.

Kane, 55, has been jailed at Montgomery County Correctional Facility outside Philadelphia since April 29.