Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane said she will resign Wednesday, two days after she was convicted of leaking secret criminal files and then lying about it.
Her deputy, former Montgomery County Commissioner Bruce Castor, held nearly hourlong news conference at 3:30 p.m. to discuss the verdict and her pending resignation. He said he will take over as acting attorney general when Kane resigns.
Kane showed little emotion as the jury convicted her late Monday of all nine counts, including two felony perjury counts.
"I have been honored to serve the people of Pennsylvania and I wish them health and safety in all their days," she said in a two-paragraph statement issued by her office Tuesday afternoon.
After hearing days of testimony about petty feuds, political intrigue and "cloak and dagger" machinations, Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy called Kane, 50, a flight risk and ordered her to surrender her passport. She also threatened to jail Kane if she retaliated against the once-trusted aides who testified against her.
In an episode that seemed more likely at a mob trial than a statehouse corruption case, Kane's political operative described being taken to a parking garage, stripped of his phone, keys and wallet and searched for a recording device before a lunch meeting with the attorney general.
The consultant, Josh Morrow, admitted lying to the grand jury to protect Kane after they had concocted a cover story that framed her chief deputy for the leak. Morrow was granted immunity for his testimony.
"Kathleen and I came up with a story, about what I was going to testify to and what she was going to testify to," Morrow said last week. "I guess I was just trying to protect Kathleen."
Kane, a first-term Democrat who had never held elected office, enjoyed a brief honeymoon period in 2013 before her agency descended into chaos as she feuded with officials inside and outside the department.
When she suspected a former office prosecutor had leaked a critical news article about her shutting down a statehouse probe, she decided to leak word that he had shut down an investigation into an NAACP official in 2009, the jury found.
The NAACP official, who was never charged, was smeared in the process, authorities said.
Kane had the material sent to a reporter through chief deputy Adrian King and Morrow.
"Where is my story? I'm dying here," she texted Morrow as the Philadelphia Daily News reporter worked on the story, according to texts shown to the jury.
Defense lawyer Seth Farber, in closing arguments Monday, said Morrow and King would "say whatever they need to in order to protect themselves."
Text messages and phone records show frequent interactions among the three of them on key days in the prosecution's timeline: when the documents changed hands, when the Daily News article appeared and when a grand jury started to investigate the leak.
A top deputy told the jury he was alarmed by the contents of the June 2014 article. He testified Kane told him it was no big deal.
"Who would say that other than the person that is responsible for it?" Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele asked.
Kane did not testify during the trial or call any defense witnesses.
"The conviction on all counts ... was a crushing blow, but we have not lost our resolve," said defense lawyer Gerald Shargel, who said he would appeal the judge's decision to exclude evidence about the offensive, mildly pornographic emails Kane found on state computers.
"We have been denied the opportunity to mount a full defense," Shargel said.
Perjury, the only felony charged, can bring up to seven years in prison. The misdemeanor charges include conspiracy, official oppression and false swearing.
Gov. Tom Kane, a fellow Democrat, renewed his previous calls for Kane to step down. She already has lost her law license over the charges. However, officials in Pennsylvania do not have to resign over misconduct until they are sentenced.
"What she did while she was the attorney general, the fact she would commit criminal acts while the top prosecutor, is a disgrace," assistant district attorney Michelle Henry said after the verdict.
