SCRANTON, Pa. — A judge has ruled that Kathleen Kane's DUI case will move forward.
A preliminary hearing was held Thursday for the former Pennsylvania attorney general who faces charges related to a crash in Scranton on March 12.
Prosecutors had two witnesses. The first was the man in the vehicle who was also in that crash. He said Kane offered to pay damages to his car after he said he'd call 911 when he says he smelled alcohol.
Also on the stand was the arresting officer. He testified that he also smelled alcohol and says Kane was slurring her speech.
Bodycam footage played in court showed that officer asking Kane if she had been drinking, to which she said she was the designated driver.
Surveillance video inside of a bar in Scranton was played, showing Kane drinking not long before the crash happened.
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.
She was given a field sobriety test by another officer, who wasn't present in court, and failed that test. She refused to have her blood drawn at a hospital and was arrested and later released.
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.
Kane's attorney Jason Mattioli questioned the weather conditions that night and the area where Kane was given the test.
He also said, "no one was in court today to testify about the standard field sobriety test. to say what she did or did not do for her to fail the test."
Lackawanna County Assistant District Attorney Jonathan Pietrowski said, "the video showed she was drinking in the video from about 3 p.m. to 6:23 p.m., based on the timestamp on video, despite her telling the officer she was the designated driver and did not drink."
The judge ruled that there was enough to take this case to trial.
Once a rising star in Pennsylvania politics, Kane, a Scranton native, 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.
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