The Manhattan district attorney’s office charged former Trump ally Ken Kurson with cybercrimes on Wednesday, making him at least the third person pardoned by former President Donald Trump to face scrutiny from New York state prosecutors.
Mr. Kurson, a 52-year-old New Jersey resident, is a former editor in chief of the New York Observer, the newspaper that was published by Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law. Mr. Kurson served as an adviser to Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign and, during Mr. Trump’s first presidential bid, advised the then-candidate on a speech to the lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee, drawing criticism because he was also working at the Observer.
Prosecutors charged Mr. Kurson in New York state court with eavesdropping and computer trespass, both types of cybercrimes. They accused him of unlawfully accessing communications of his then-wife while at the Observer offices, which were located in Midtown Manhattan. Mr. Kurson used spyware to monitor his wife’s keystrokes, obtained her passwords and accessed her Facebook and Gmail accounts, prosecutors said.
“We will not accept presidential pardons as get-out-of-jail-free cards for the well-connected in New York,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. , a Democrat, said in a statement.
Mr. Kurson faces a minimum of no jail time and a maximum of four years in prison.
A lawyer for Mr. Kurson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a related case in October 2020, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged Mr. Kurson with cyberstalking three people. Prosecutors said Mr. Kurson used aliases to file complaints about two of the victims with their employer and posted false negative reviews about one victim on Yelp. Mr. Kurson pleaded not guilty to those charges.
This past January, while the federal charges were pending, Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Kurson as part of a flurry of pardons and commutations on his final day in office. The White House said at the time that federal prosecutors’ investigation of Mr. Kurson only began because he was nominated to a role within the Trump administration. The cyberstalking charges were related to Mr. Kurson’s 2015 divorce, according to the White House.
Mr. Vance’s office began the investigation after Mr. Trump’s pardon, prosecutors said.
Mr. Kurson is at least the third person pardoned by Mr. Trump to be investigated or charged by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. In March 2019, Manhattan prosecutors charged former Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort with state residential mortgage fraud just minutes after he was sentenced on charges related to his political consulting work in Ukraine.
Later that year, a state judge tossed the case, saying the charges violated a law that protects defendants from being prosecuted for the same crimes twice.
Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Manafort for his federal crimes in December 2020.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office is also investigating former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who was also pardoned by Mr. Trump in January. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan had accused Mr. Bannon and several associates of stealing from hundreds of thousands of people who donated to the We Build the Wall campaign. After the pardon, a judge dismissed the indictment against Mr. Bannon, who had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
—Rebecca Ballhaus contributed to this article.
Write to Corinne Ramey at [email protected]
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