Woman who stole Ashley Biden diary sentenced to month in jail

A Florida girl who stole after which bought a diary and different objects belonging to Ashley Biden — the daughter of President Joe Biden — to a right-wing media group weeks earlier than the 2020 election was sentenced Tuesday to 1 month in federal jail and three months of dwelling detention.

Aimee Harris, 41, additionally was ordered to forfeit $20,000 and to serve three years of probation at her sentencing in U.S. District Court docket in Manhattan, the place a lawyer for Ashley Biden was within the viewers.

Earlier than Harris was sentenced, assistant U.S. Legal professional Robert Sobelman informed Decide Laura Taylor Swain that Harris had proven a “sample of disrespect for the legislation and the justice system,” and was motivated to steal Ashley Biden’s property “to make as a lot cash as she may,” and to hurt President Biden politically, The Related Press reported.

“She needed to break Ms. Biden’s father,” Sobelman stated, the AP reported.

Prosecutors had requested that Harris be sentenced to between 4 to 10 months in jail, as advisable by federal sentencing pointers.

The Palm Seashore resident, whose sentencing was postponed a few dozen instances at her request, in flip requested Swain to condemn her to probation, with no time in jail.

Though Swain gave Harris a lighter sentence than prosecutors needed, she known as Harris’ conduct “despicable,” in line with the AP.

The decide identified that Harris initially had tried to promote Ashley Biden’s objects to the marketing campaign of then-President Donald Trump.

“I don’t imagine I’m above the legislation,” Harris stated, the AP reported. “I am a survivor of long-term home abuse and sexual trauma.”

Harris pleaded responsible in August 2022 to conspiring with 60-year-old Robert Kurlander, in September 2020 to steal Ashley’s possessions from a Delray, Florida, dwelling the place Ashley beforehand lived and transporting them over state strains on the market.

Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace, which prosecuted Harris, declined to remark. Harris’ legal professional Anthony Cecutti declined to remark to CNBC, however in courtroom had informed the decide that his shopper “carries the disgrace and stigma for her actions,” the AP reported.

Harris, who briefly stayed on the Delray residence after Ashley vacated it, found the diary, which had “extremely private entries,” in addition to a digital storage card that the president’s daughter had left behind, in line with courtroom information.

The provocative right-wing group Undertaking Veritas later paid Harris and the Jupiter, Florida, resident Kurlander $20,000 apiece for the objects, in line with courtroom information.

Kurlander, who pleaded responsible similtaneously Harris did, at the moment is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 25 by Swain.

Harris’ sentencing comes greater than three months after a federal decide dominated that prosecutors may obtain paperwork seized by the FBI with search warrants executed on the houses of Undertaking Veritas’ then-CEO James O’Keefe and two different members of the group in November 2021 in reference to a legal investigation of the diary theft.

Decide Analisa Torres dominated that prosecutors may get paperwork seized in reference to these warrants that weren’t protected by attorney-client privilege.

Torres’ order in late December notes that prosecutors declare that Harris and Kurlander have been paid by Undertaking Veritas to journey to New York handy over Ashley Biden’s journal to the group.

“There, Harris allegedly revealed that the Sufferer had extra objects within the Florida residence, and, ‘at Undertaking Veritas’s request,’ she and Kurlander returned to Florida to retrieve them,” Torres wrote, citing the claims by prosecutors.

“The Authorities alleges that they stole extra objects from the Sufferer and gave them to a Undertaking Veritas worker in Florida, who transported the objects to New York.”

Torres in her order endorsed the discovering of a so-called particular grasp, who was appointed to evaluate the paperwork, that Undertaking Veritas and O’Keefe weren’t entitled to journalistic privilege in shielding the paperwork from prosecutors’ eyes.

A lawyer for O’Keefe didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Tuesday.

Neither O’Keefe nor anybody else linked to Undertaking Veritas has been charged in reference to the diary.

O’Keefe, in a press release issued after the FBI searches, stated that his group had been approached by individuals providing it the Biden diary, however that the group determined to not publish its contents and later turned the diary over to legislation enforcement when Ashley’s lawyer refused to just accept it.

“On the finish of the day, we made the moral determination that as a result of, partly, we couldn’t decide if the diary was actual, if the diary in actual fact belonged to Ashley Biden, or if the contents of the diary occurred, we couldn’t publish the diary and any half thereof,” O’Keefe stated on the time.

O’Keefe was eliminated as Undertaking Veritas’ chief in February 2023.

The Related Press contributed to this report.