Biden’s daughter urged jail for thief in letter to guage

Ashley Biden, the daughter of President Joe Biden, wrote a decide to say she wouldn’t attend the felony sentencing earlier this month of the lady who stole her diary as a result of “it would only increase my pain.”

The extremely emotional letter was unsealed by U.S. District Decide Laura Taylor Swain greater than three weeks after the judge sentenced Aimee Harris to at least one month in federal jail and three months of house detention.

“My goal in asking Your Honor to impose a term of incarceration is to ensure that another woman isn’t bullied and shamed like this ever again,” Ashley Biden wrote. “The despair I have often felt will never truly go away. But I ask Your Honor to hold Ms. Harris accountable so that she thinks twice before doing it to someone else.”

She additionally requested Swain to condemn the Florida resident to jail adopted by a prolonged probation interval, in line with the letter unsealed Thursday in Manhattan federal courtroom.

The letter was unsealed on the request of The New York Instances, whose lawyer David McCaw famous to Swain that Ashley Biden and prosecutors didn’t object to it being made public, whereas Harris took no place on the request.

Harris, 41, additionally was ordered to serve three years of probation and to forfeit the $20,000 she acquired for promoting the stolen diary.

Harris pleaded responsible in August 2022 to conspiring two years earlier with Robert Kurlander, 61, to steal Biden’s diary and different objects from the Florida house the place Biden had beforehand lived, and to move them over state strains on the market to the right-wing group Venture Veritas.

Venture Veritas didn’t publish the diary, however one other right-wing outlet did, shortly earlier than the 2020 presidential election, which Joe Biden received.

Harris was motivated to steal the diary to hurt Joe Biden politically, a prosecutor stated at her sentencing.

Kurlander, who additionally pleaded responsible within the case, is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 25.

A lawyer for Biden attended Harris’ sentencing on April 9. The lawyer had stated they’d not add to what Biden stated in her letter to Sweeney.

“I am deeply saddened that I even have to write this letter because my personal private journal was stolen and sold for profit,” Biden wrote in that April 8 letter.

“The point of the theft, I assume, was to be able to peddle grotesque lies by distorting my stream-of-consciousness thoughts,” Biden wrote. “The reason I have decided to not attend tomorrow’s sentencing in person is because it would only increase my pain. Nonetheless, I write to ask Your Honor to sentence the defendant to time in prison.”

Biden stated that Harris’ theft of her diary and different objects “constitute one of the most heinous forms of bullying, not to mention a complete violation of my privacy and personal dignity.”

“After being the victim of a crime in my early twenties, I developed PTSD,” Biden wrote, with out detailing the character of that crime.

“The journal that was stolen was part of my efforts to heal. I am a private citizen, targeted only because my father happened to be running to be President. In other words, the extensive work I have done to move past my trauma was undone by Ms. Harris’s actions.”

Biden additionally wrote, “The defendant’s actions have created a constant environment of anxiety, fear, and intimidation in which my innermost thoughts are constantly distorted and manipulated.”

She additionally wrote that regardless of the theft occurring greater than three years in the past, whereas Joe Biden was operating for president, “because of the publicity it drew — exactly as Ms. Harris intended — I am constantly re-traumatized by it.”

“I will forever have to deal with the fact that my personal journal can be viewed online,” Biden wrote. “Repeatedly, I hear others grossly misinterpret my once-private writings and lob false accusations that defame my character and those of the people I love.”

“Her actions were not only re-traumatizing to me, but constituted a horrific trauma in and of themselves. This ongoing harm is a direct result of Ms. Harris’s intentional actions,” the letter stated.

In asking Sweeney to condemn Harris to jail and an extended interval of probation, Ashley wrote: “She should be held accountable for what she has done.”

“Not only did she demonstrate a complete lack of morality, but she lacks any respect for the rule of law as well,” Biden wrote. “I have spent much of my life trying to speak up for those who cannot find their voices. I am fortunate enough to have found mine, and I use it today — and every day — to make sure that bullies are held accountable.”

“Finally, I worry that a non-incarceratory sentence will send a message — to her and to others like her — that it is okay to violate and exploit others for your own personal gain, regardless of the humiliation and pain it causes,” Biden wrote. “Please ship a message that these kinds of damaging felony actions is not going to be tolerated.”