OAN’s Brooke Mallory
6:26 PM – Thursday, April 4, 2024
On Tuesday, the Justice Department requested that a New York district judge impose a four- to ten-month jail sentence on the woman who stole first daughter Ashley Biden’s longtime diary.
Aimee Harris pleaded guilty in August 2022 to conspiring to commit interstate transportation of stolen property in connection with the diary theft.
Prosecutors for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York had initially requested a sentence of six months of home confinement, followed by three years of supervised release.
Prosecutors claim that Harris has asked to have her sentencing hearing date rescheduled twelve times, and that her attempts to “improperly delay” her punishment make her sentence more severe.
“The defendant’s sentence must also account for the manner in which she has abused the administration of justice throughout the pendency of this court proceeding,” the filing by US Attorney Damian Williams to Judge Laura Taylor Swain states.
“The defendant has repeatedly and consistently engaged in tactics to improperly delay this proceeding, including by misleading the Court with false information to justify belated and unmerited requests for adjournments, refusing to appear when directed, and failing to comply with court orders to disclose or produce certain information,” the document continues. “Through this pattern of behavior, the defendant has shown a complete disregard for the Court’s orders and for the orderly administration of this judicial proceeding.”
While staying at a house in Delray Beach, Florida, where President Biden’s daughter had previously lived, Harris discovered the first daughter’s diary, tax information, personal family photos, and her cellphone in September 2020, according to the DOJ.
“Highly personal entries” were found in the diary, according to the DOJ.
Knowing that Ashley Biden’s property belonged to “an immediate family member of a then-former government official who was a candidate for national political office,” Harris enlisted the assistance of co-defendant Robert Kurlander to assist in selling it after taking it, the DOJ said.
Before the 2020 election, the pair received $40,000 for selling the diary to the media organization Project Veritas.
Although the diary’s contents were not published by Project Veritas, entries eventually surfaced online.
One of these entries allegedly stated that now-President Joe Biden would consistently ask Ashley to take showers with him. One alleged diary entry said, “I remember… showers with my dad (probably not appropriate).”
“A sentence involving no period of incarceration would be wholly insufficient to reflect the gravity of the defendant’s conduct, including her apparent belief that she is above the law and that she need not comply with this Court’s orders,” prosecutors said in their sentencing request.
Harris’s sentencing is set for April 9th.
Prosecutors threatened to pursue an enhancement for obstruction of justice if she did not show up for her next scheduled appearance.
Kurlander’s sentencing hearing is set for April 12th, having entered a guilty plea in the case as well.
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