Former Pennsylvania AG Kathleen Kane Sent To Treatment For Alcohol Use After Probation Violation
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP/CBS) -- Pennsylvania's former top law enforcement officer Kathleen Kane, who served jail time for leaking secret investigative files and lying about it, admitted Monday that she violated her probation when she was arrested for drunken driving in March.
Kane, the first woman and first Democrat to be elected attorney general in the state, was sentenced to two months to a year of jail on the probation violation but was given credit for time already served and was scheduled to be paroled directly to a residential treatment center for alcohol use.
Kane appeared before the same judge who sentenced her in the original leak case.
"I was not anticipating seeing you again, and I was hopeful we would not see you again in Montgomery County, but that's been your choice, not mine," Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy told Kane in court.
"She clearly has some substance abuse issues that she's battling, alcohol-related," Montgomery County Prosecutor Kelly Lloyd said. "She did go into some in-patient treatment immediately after the DUI occurred and then we wanted to address the substance abuse issues even further."
She is expected to spend three to six months in the treatment center.
"The judge is concerned that Kathleen continues to get some care and treatment for the issues that she has," attorney Marc Steinberg said.
Kane took the stand briefly and answered a series of routine questions. She did not comment outside court.
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.
Later this week, she will have a preliminary hearing in Scranton for her DUI charge.
CBS3's Matt Petrillo contributed to this report.
(© Copyright 2022 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
