Woman who stole Ashley Biden’s diary jailed | Wilnesh News

A Florida A woman who stole President Joe Biden’s daughter Ashley Biden’s diary and other belongings in the weeks before the 2020 election and then sold them to a right-wing media group was sentenced Tuesday to a month in federal prison and three months in prison. months of home detention.

Aimee Harris, 41, was also ordered to forfeit $20,000 and serve three years of probation at her sentencing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

Prosecutors asked Judge Laura Taylor Swain to sentence Harris to four to 10 months in prison as recommended by federal sentencing guidelines.

The Palm Beach resident’s sentencing was delayed more than a dozen times at her request, and she in turn asked Swain to sentence her to probation without jail time.

Harris pleaded guilty in August 2022 to conspiring with Robert Kurlander, 60, to steal Ashley from her previous home in Delray, Florida, in September 2020 property and transport it across state lines for sale.

Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, which is prosecuting Harris, declined to comment. Harris’ attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Harris, who was temporarily staying at the Delray mansion after Ashley moved out, discovered the diary, which contained “highly personal entries,” as well as digital memory cards left behind by the president’s daughter, according to court records.

The provocative right-wing group Project Veritas later paid Harris and Kurland, a resident of Jupiter, Florida, $20,000 each for the items, court records show.

Kurland pleaded guilty at the same time as Harris and is currently scheduled to be sentenced by Swain on October 25.

三個多月前，聯邦法官裁定檢察官可以收到FBI 於2021 年11 月在Veritas 計畫時任執行長詹姆斯·奧基夫(James O’Keefe) 和該組織其他兩名成員家中執行搜查令扣押的document. In connection with a criminal investigation into a diary theft.

Judge Analisa Torres ruled that prosecutors can seize documents related to an arrest warrant that is not protected by attorney-client privilege.

Torres’ late-December order noted that prosecutors allege Harris and Kurland accepted payments from Project Veritas to travel to New York to deliver Ashley Biden’s diaries to the organization.

“Harris allegedly disclosed that the victim had other items at her residence in Florida and that ‘at the request of Program Veritas,’ she and Kurland returned to Florida to retrieve the items,” Torres wrote, citing prosecutors. .”

“The government alleges they stole additional items from the victims and turned them over to Project Veritas employees in Florida, who transported the items to New York.”

Torres agreed with the finding of a so-called special master appointed to review the documents that Project Veritas and O’Keefe did not have the press privilege to protect the documents from prosecutors.

O’Keefe’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Neither O’Keefe nor anyone else associated with Project Veritas has been charged in connection with the diary.

O’Keefe said in a statement after the FBI search that Biden’s diary was provided to his organization but the group decided not to release its contents and later turned it over when Ashley’s attorney refused. got law enforcement to accept it.

“Ultimately, we made the ethical decision, in part because we could not determine whether the diary was authentic, whether the diary actually belonged to Ashley Biden, or whether the contents of the diary occurred, that we could not publish the diary or any portion of it, “O’Keefe said at the time.

O’Keefe was relieved of his duties as Veritas project leader in February 2023.