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A federal judge in Manhattan sentenced a Florida woman to one month in prison Tuesday for her role in a brazen scheme to steal President Biden’s daughter’s diary and sell it to right-wing groups in an effort to disrupt the 2020 election. .
Before sentencing, Judge Laura Taylor Swain of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York said the woman’s actions were “despicable and therefore very serious.”
Harris, 41, tested the patience of prosecutors and the judge overseeing the case, repeatedly missing sentencing dates and jeopardizing what appeared to be a likely path to probation. In August 2022, she conspired to transport her stolen diary to New York, where she met with employees of the group “Project Veritas” and sold her diary for $40,000 just weeks before the election. Pleaded guilty to selling it.
The judge also sentenced her to three years’ probation, three months of home confinement, and ordered her to repay the money she received from the sale.
The verdict against Harris reflects the seriousness of the government’s efforts to prevent public interference in elections. Among them is former President Donald J. Trump, who is awaiting federal trial in Washington on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election results.
In a statement submitted to the court, Biden called what happened to him “one of the most heinous forms of bullying.”
Federal prosecutors initially recommended that Harris be sentenced to up to six months of home confinement and three years of supervised release, while his attorney applied for probation. But Harris’ sentencing was repeatedly postponed more than a dozen times, in part because she claimed she had parenting problems or was ill.
At a hearing scheduled for late January, Harris called the court from a hospital emergency room and Judge Swain described the situation as “highly unusual.” At a hearing in February, the judge told Ms Harris that the reasons she had given for seeking an adjournment were “of great concern to the court”.
Furious prosecutors asked the judge this month to impose a sentence of four to 10 months in prison, saying Harris had “repeatedly and consistently engaged in tactics to unduly delay this case.” They accused her of lying about the nature of her parenting, failing to obtain identification to travel to New York, and violating the rules of her court.
Judge Swain eventually threatened that if she did not comply with the court’s orders, she would be arrested and taken to New York by U.S. Marshals.
After pleading guilty in August 2022, prosecutors announced that Harris was subsequently arrested and charged with DUI with property damage and tested positive for marijuana. Her judge ordered her to undergo treatment for alcohol abuse.
Ms Harris claimed her diary was left unattended and dumped at a friend’s house where she was staying. But prosecutors said she stole a diary in August 2020 that President Biden’s daughter, Ashley Biden, had left at her home to keep with her other personal belongings.
Harris then asked his friend Robert Kurlander to help him sell the diary. Eventually, the two found a buyer in Project Veritas, each earning him $20,000. The two then returned to the house with other items belonging to the president’s daughter to confirm that she was indeed the author of the diary.
Kurlander, 60, also pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the Justice Department’s investigation into the theft, and is expected to be sentenced later this year. On Friday, prosecutors asked for a six-month delay. Kurlander was previously convicted of fraud in federal court in Florida. He could also face prison time, but unlike Mr. Harris, he decided to cooperate with prosecutors.
The FBI searched the homes of three former Project Veritas employees, including its founder James O’Keefe, as part of the investigation, but no one has been charged so far. All three members subsequently left the group.
O’Keefe was forced out of Project Veritas after employees criticized his management style and questionable spending. Hannah Giles, who succeeded him as chief executive, laid off employees.
However, he suddenly resigned in December.she wrote on social media She said she had “stepped into an irreparable mess caused by strong evidence of past misconduct and past financial fraud.”
In December, a federal judge ruled that prosecutors can review hundreds of documents related to the diary theft. Project Veritas argued that the materials were protected by the First Amendment and that “disclosure to the government would violate constitutional rights and cause irreparable harm.”
Lawyers for O’Keefe and two other former Project Veritas operatives, Spencer Meese and Eric Cochran, asked the judge to temporarily halt the order pending an appeal. However, a judge denied the motion in January, noting that further delays “could impede the investigation and raise concerns about witness recollection, evidence availability, and statute of limitations.”
Mr Meads appealed this decision. The status of the investigation remains unclear, but the postponement of Kurlander’s sentencing until October likely means that prosecutors are not yet done pursuing O’Keefe.
During the investigation, investigators obtained evidence that Harris not only wanted to profit from selling the diary to the group, but also wanted to hurt Biden’s chances of defeating Trump. did.
“Stealing a candidate’s family’s personal property and selling it to an organization to exploit it for political gain is wrong and illegal, regardless of political purpose,” prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo. ” he said. “Criminal acts like this not only harm the victims, they seek to undermine the political process.”
“It must be clear that this type of criminal behavior will not be tolerated, regardless of party affiliation, ideology or motivation,” the memo added.
Text messages obtained by prosecutors show that Harris and Kurlander knew they were stealing Biden’s diary and other belongings that the group kept while he was recovering from drugs. It turned out that he was planning to make the contents of his diary public. Dependence.
Olivia Bensimon and Anusha Baya Contributed to the report.
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