Two Florida residents pleaded guilty Thursday to federal charges of scheming to sell the stolen diary of President Joe Biden’s daughter Ashley Biden, according to prosecutors and law enforcement officials.
Aimee Harris, 40, and Jonathan Kurlander, 58, admitted to stealing the diary from a home in Delray Beach, and then selling it to the conservative media company Project Veritas for $40,000, prosecutors and law enforcement officials said.
Court documents don’t specifically identify Ashley Biden as the owner of the stolen diary, but NBC News has previously confirmed the investigation into Project Veritas and the theft of the diary. The stolen items are identified in court papers as the “personal belongings of an immediate family member of a then-former government official who was a candidate for national political office.”
Harris, of Palm Beach, and Kurlander, of Jupiter, each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property. Their lawyers could not immediately be reached.
“Harris and Kurlander stole personal property from an immediate family member of a candidate for national political office,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. “They sold the property to an organization in New York for $40,000 and even returned to take more of the victim’s property when asked to do so. Harris and Kurlander sought to profit from their theft of another person’s personal property, and they now stand convicted of a federal felony as a result.”
In a statement released last November when the investigation first came to light, Project Veritas CEO James O’Keefe said his group had been approached by people claiming they had the diary, but had decided not to publish it.
“Late last year, we were approached by tipsters claiming they had a copy of Ashley Biden’s diary” and “the tipsters indicated that they were negotiating with a different media outlet for the payment of monies for the diary,” said O’Keefe, whose organization is known for producing “gotcha”-style undercover videos involving Democratic politicians, activists and the media.
“At the end of the day, we made the ethical decision that because, in part, we could not determine if the diary was real, if the diary in fact belonged to Ashley Biden, or if the contents of the diary occurred, we could not publish the diary and any part thereof.”
He said Project Veritas turned the diary over to law enforcement after an attorney for Ashley Biden refused to accept or authenticate it.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
