Aimee Harris, 41, of Florida, was formally sentenced two weeks ago on Tuesday for selling President Joe Biden’s daughter (Ashley Biden) journal. The journal was sold to Project Veritas, a conservative organization, four years ago. Harris, the Florida resident, was sentenced to one month in prison and three months in home detention for stealing Biden’s daughter’s diary. Judge Laura Taylor Swain of Manhattan’s federal court imposed the punishment on Harris. Judge Swain went on to call the Palm Beach, Florida woman’s behavior “despicable.”
Moreover, in 2022, Harris pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge, admitting to taking $20,000 of the $40,000 paid by Project Veritas. Also, despite Harris being sentenced in 2024, her intended sentencing date had to be rescheduled due to Harris’s claims of illnesses.
In fact, Harris’ penalty was postponed a dozen times, in part because she claimed to have child care issues or was ill. For example, during a scheduled hearing in
late January, Harris called the court from a hospital emergency room. Leading and forcing Judge Swain to deem the scenario “highly irregular.” At a February hearing, the judge informed Harris that the grounds she had given for requesting a delay were “matters of great concern to the court.”
Finally, after multiple delays, prosecutors, irritated, sought the judge last month to impose a term of four to ten months in prison for the women. The prosecutors demanded the term claiming Harris “repeatedly and consistently engaged in tactics to improperly delay this proceeding.” They accused her of misrepresenting the nature of her child care, failing to obtain an identification card to travel to New York, and violating court rules. Judge Swain responded by threatening to have her arrested and taken to New York by U.S. Marshals if she did not follow the court’s commands.
Stealing the “Diary”
Furthermore, Harris the Florida woman discovered the journal and other personal belongings at a friend’s Delray Beach home in 2020. Ashley Biden assumed her belongings were safe when she temporarily stayed there in spring 2020. However, Harris said that the diary had been abandoned and dumped at the friend’s house where she was staying. Despite Harris claims prosecutors maintain that in August 2020, the Florida woman stole the diary that President Biden’s daughter Ashley Biden had left at the house to store with other personal items.
In addition, after stealing the diary, Harris enlisted the help of a friend, Robert Kurlander, to sell it. After searching for a buyer the couple eventually, found a client in Project Veritas, with each earning $20,000. The two later returned to the house. With the purposed of seizing additional materials from Ashley to corroborate her identity as the author of the diary.
Project Veritas
Additionally, the organization refers to itself as a news organization created in 2010 by James O’Keeffe. Project Veritas is most known for carrying out hidden camera stings. The stings revolve around embarrassing news organizations, labor unions, and Democratic politicians. As part of the inquiry, the FBI searched the homes of three former Project Veritas employees, including O’Keefe. However none of this three individuals have been charged at the moment. But they have since then departed the group.
O’Keefe was pushed out of Project Veritas after staff criticized his leadership style and questionable spending. Later in December, a federal court ruled that prosecutors might review hundreds of documents relating to the diary’s theft. Although Project Veritas said that the materials were protected by the First Amendment. Claiming that “disclosure to the government would violate their constitutional rights, constituting irreparable harm.”
Also, lawyers for O’Keefe and the two other former Project Veritas operatives, Spencer Meads and Eric Cochran, requested the judge to temporarily postpone the ruling. The three which to postpone the ruling while an appeal was being heard. However, the judge refused the motion in January. The judge stated that further delay would “frustrate the investigation and raise concerns about witness recollection, evidence availability, and statutes of limitations.”
Florida Woman Aimee Harris
Throughout the investigation, detectives discovered evidence that Harris planned not just to benefit from selling the diaries to the group. But she also had intentions of harming Biden’s chances of beating Trump. Prosecutors stated in a sentencing memo:
Stealing personal belongings of a candidate’s family member, and selling them to an organization to exploit them for political gain, was wrong and illegal no matter the political agenda. Such criminal conduct does not merely harm the victim, but seeks to undermine the political process.
The Florida woman has since then already apologized in tears for allowing Ashley Biden’s sensitive writings to be exposed. After she discovers the diary and other personal items. However, Ashley described her experience as “one of the most heinous forms of bullying.”
Overall, Harris’ imprisonment demonstrates the seriousness of the government’s efforts to dissuade people from tampering with elections. That includes former President Donald J. Trump, who is facing a federal trial in Washington on allegations of attempting to sway the outcome of the 2020 election.
Written by Nohemi Sanchez
Sources:
The New York Times: Woman Sentenced to Month in Prison Over Theft of Ashley Biden’s Diary
New York Post: Florida mom who stole, sold Ashley Biden diary sentenced to month in prison, ordered t pay $20k: ‘Despicable’
CBS NEWS: Florida woman is sentenced to a month in jail for selling Biden’s daughter’s diary
Featured Image Courtesy of Gage Skidmore Flicker Page – Creative Common License
Inset Images Courtesy of Barnaby Dorfman and Douglas Palmer Flickr Pages – Creative Common License
