Former Pennsylvania attorney general Kathleen Kane is released from prison just eight months into a maximum 23-month sentence for leaking grand jury evidence

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Former Pennsylvania attorney general Kathleen Kane walked free from prison on Wednesday after serving eight months behind bars for leaking grand jury material in order to smear a political rival and then lying about it. 

Kane was jailed at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Philadelphia where she was due to serve a sentence of 10 to 23 months. But she was released two months earlier than the minimum amount of time that a judge ordered her to serve due to 'good behavior'. 

When she emerged from the prison about 8.20am on Wednesday, she told reporters she was 'grateful' to be free.  She was accompanied by two policewoman as she was greeted by a large media presence assembled outside.

The 53-year-old, who was carrying two brown paper bags filled with her belongings, was greeted by family members in a black Mercedes SUV.  

Former Pennsylvania attorney general Kathleen Kane, (pictured), is seen leaving jail after serving eight months of a maximum sentence of 23 months for leaking grand jury material and lying about it 

Kane resigned after being convicted in 2016 of perjury, obstruction and other counts for leaking grand jury material to a Philadelphia newspaper and lying about it. She smiles and appears cheerful as she walks to a nearby SUV where family were waiting on her 

With her reputation in tatters, Kane resigned as attorney general after being convicted in 2016 of perjury, obstruction and other counts for leaking grand jury material to a Philadelphia newspaper and then lying about it.

The Scranton native was a little-known former assistant county prosecutor when she ran for attorney general with a campaign largely financed by her then-husband, who helped run a family-owned trucking and warehousing business.

Kane won in a landslide in 2012, becoming the first woman and first Democrat to win the office.

Democrats embraced her as a rising star and her name began floating in political circles as a potential U.S. Senate candidate.

 The mother-of-two, 53, was greeted by family members in a black Mercedes SUV as she carried two brown paper bags fill of belongings outside the facility

Her hair was the only feature which appeared slightly difference from the time of her release on Wednesday, (left),  to over two years ago in 2016 at the time of her trial, (right)

However, the state Supreme Court appointed a special counsel to investigate Kane's office in 2014 after former prosecutors with the attorney general's office complained that a Philadelphia Daily News story had contained information from a grand jury investigation that was protected by secrecy laws.

She was charged in 2015. Prosecutors contended that Kane had leaked the information to smear two former state prosecutors.

Kane believed they had provided information for an earlier story in The Philadelphia Inquirer that revealed her decision not to pursue charges against Democratic state lawmakers in a separate corruption case.

This booking photo of Kane was taken as she arrived to begin her sentence at Montgomery County Correctional Facility on November 29 last year 

Kane was embraced by Pennsylvania democrats and quickly rose to become attorney general. But she made enemies  after criticizing the handling of the high-profile investigation of Jerry Sandusky and Penn State University

Kane had argued that she had been the victim of selective and vindictive prosecution after clashing with some of the office's former prosecutors.

During her campaign for the attorney general's office, she raised questions about how it had prosecuted the Jerry Sandusky child molestation case.

After the special counsel began investigating, Kane revealed the exchange of pornographic emails by members of the attorney general's office and judges.

She had also argued that she was wrongly turned down in an effort to keep all Montgomery County judges from handling her case and that evidence against her was illegally obtained.

Kane was convicted of two counts of felony perjury and seven misdemeanors, including obstruction and conspiracy.

In July 2016, then-Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane is seen speaking during a news conference in Harrisburg. Kane argued that she had been the victim of selective and vindictive prosecution

Kane is pictured leaving Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown following her sentencing on October 24, 2016 

She had asked the high court to hear her case in an appeal last year, after the state Superior Court affirmed her conviction for perjury and for leaking grand jury information to hurt a rival.

She had argued among other things that a special prosecutor who first built the case against her lacked legal authority.

But after appeals failed, she turned herself in to the jail in the Philadelphia suburb of Eagleville at the end of November and began serving a 10- to 23-month term. 

She eventually had a couple months shaved off for good behavior.

In October last year, Kane was granted a divorce from her husband Christopher, whose family runs a trucking business. The couple have two teenage sons together. 

Kane had been critical of the Sandusky investigation while running for office in 2012, creating resentment among prosecutors in the case who told the judge about the grand jury leaks.

Kathleen Kane is seen congratulating Governor Tom Wolf following his inauguration ceremony at the State Capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in January 2015 

She is surrounded by her security detail on August 24, 2015, after a preliminary hearing on charges against her including perjury, false swearing and obstruction of justice

'This is war,' Kane wrote in a 2014 email that was aired at trial.

In her appeal she had argued that evidence against her was illegally obtained and that she had been the victim of selective and vindictive prosecution.

Kane became involved in a personal feud with another former prosecutor - a clash that eventually led to her political undoing.

She believed ex-state prosecutor Frank Fina was behind a March 2014 story in The Inquirer and Daily News that revealed that she had secretly shut down a sting investigation.

The sting captured Philadelphia Democrats on tape accepting cash, money orders or gifts from an undercover operative.

Fina, for many years the head of corruption cases for the Attorney General's Office, launched the sting before Kane took office in 2013.

Kane later orchestrated a leak of confidential grand jury information about an investigation once run by Fina.

She believed that he had failed to aggressively pursue corruption allegations against the onetime head of the Philadelphia NAACP, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

While she was looking for information to discredit Fina, she discovered a series of emails containing pornography and offensive content that were exchanged between state prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges.

The scandal became known as 'Porngate' and it led to the retirements or resignations of more than a half dozen high profile public officials, including onetime Supreme Court justices Seamus P McCaffery and J Michael Eakin.

Kathleen Kane was officially stripped of her law license when she was incarcerated, WNEP reported that she can apply for reinstatement come April 2024.