PHILADELPHIA — Former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane moved a big step closer to serving her jail term Friday with a ruling by the state Superior Court affirming her conviction for perjury and leaking grand jury information to hurt a rival.

Kane, 51, the state’s first woman and first Democrat to be elected attorney general, was convicted by a jury nearly two years ago, but the judge in the case said she did not have to serve her 10- to-23-month sentence in the Montgomery County Jail until her state appeals were over.

Like all defendants in criminal cases in Pennsylvania, Kane, who lives in the Scranton area, had an automatic right to one appeal - to have her conviction reviewed by a panel of the state Superior Court.

The next possible step would be for the state Supreme Court to consider her case, although it is not legally required to. If it turns away her appeal, or hears it but rules against Kane, she then would be jailed.

By Tribune News Service