Former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane. Photo: Lizzy McLellan/ALM

The Pennsylvania Superior Court has affirmed the conviction of former Attorney General Kathleen Kane, whose meteoric rise to prominence was surpassed only by her dramatic downfall in the wake of scandal involving a shuttered corruption investigation, grand jury leaks and personal retaliation.

In a published Friday opinion, a three-judge appeals court panel consisting of Judges Anne E. Lazarus, Paula Francisco Ott and William H. Platt unanimously upheld Kane's conviction on perjury and related charges. Kane was convicted in August 2016 when a Montgomery County jury found that she had intentionally leaked confidential investigative information to smear a rival, then lied about her actions under oath.

In October of that year, she was sentenced to 10 to 23 months in jail and eight years of probation.

Kane was released on $75,000 cash bail for the duration of the appeals process. The Montgomery County District Attorney's Office said Kane would not report to prison until after the state Supreme Court reviews and presumably denies her final appeal.

“We have won another battle in bringing Ms. Kane to justice,” District Attorney's Office spokesperson Kate Delano said in an email Friday.

Kane's attorney, Joshua D. Lock, could not be reached for comment.

Kane argued several points on appeal, including that all of the judges in Montgomery County should have recused themselves from the bench during her case—alleging they had connections to the investigation—and that the prosecutors used vindictive tactics to secure her conviction. However, the Superior Court rejected all of her arguments.

“The mere fact that some judges of a particular court may have some familiarity with a particular case has not been held to be a basis for recusal of an entire bench of judges,” Lazarus wrote in the court's opinion.

Additionally, there was no evidence of a vindictive prosecution, Lazarus said.

“Kane has not shown that others similarly situated were not prosecuted for similar conduct, nor has she provided evidence of impermissible conduct by the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office. Therefore, Kane's claim that the commonwealth vindictively and/or selectively prosecuted her for the foregoing charges is meritless and no relief is due,” Lazarus said.

Kane's slow-motion fall from grace began with the revelation in 2014 that she had shut down a political corruption investigation that eventually resulted in a series of guilty pleas in a prosecution revived by the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. It continued as Kane—as the jury found—broke the law in the process of seeking revenge for that first blow on Frank Fina, the former prosecutor she believed let loose the information to the media that led to her public embarrassment.

And in the ensuing months, as criminal charges were filed and her law license was suspended, as first the state Senate and then the House of Representatives looked into methods of removal, as a series of retaliation lawsuits directed at Kane and her office by current and former OAG employees grew and grew, Kane was repeatedly damaged in the public eye but remained unbowed. The only true indication along the way that Kane was anything less than bulletproof was her decision to withdraw from earlier statements that she would run for re-election.

Following the final blow that was the jury's verdict, Kane resigned from her post.