Man who tried to inquire about Trump's taxes is imprisoned
A fresh legal case is all over the news! A private investigator in Louisiana was sentenced Wednesday to eighteen months in jail for trying to electronically obtain Donald Trump's tax return in the weeks leading up to the 2016 election. The name of the accused is Jordan Hamlett, reported El Nuevo Herald.
Jordan Hamlett, 32, of Lafayette, pleaded guilty in December to improperly using Trump's social security number. He faced a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of 250,000 dollars. Judge John deGravelles clarified that the sentence "has nothing to do with the elections ... It's not about who won or who lost, it's not about politics."
Hamlett, according to the charges, tried to obtain Trump's data by entering a financial assistance website of the Department of Education. Prosecutor Ryan Rezaei had asked the judge to consider what would have happened if Hamlett had accomplished his job.
"This could have affected the results of a presidential election", the prosecutor warned. Hamlett apologized for his actions and expressed regret. What he did, he admitted, "cost me everything", including his profession and his home.
"I was trying to help and I made the wrong decision", he acknowledged. "It was a mistake, it was a bad decision". The judge ordered Hamlett to report to a federal penitentiary institution by May 28. And he ordered him to pay 14,794 dollars to the Department of Education to repay the cost of having to thwart Hamlett's cyber-infiltration.
Defense attorney Michael Fiser argued that Hamlett did not do so with malicious intent but "out of sheer curiosity" wanted to know if he could get Trump's data through the internet. Trump has refused to publish his tax return, contradicting a presidential tradition dating from Jimmy Carter.
Hamlett used Trump's name, Social Security number and date of birth to fill out a form requesting student financial assistance in September 2016, according to court documents. He also created a fake email address to complete the form. With a name and password, Hamlett tried to enter the Internal Revenue Service to obtain the Trump data, according to the file.
"The defendant tried six different times to obtain federal tax information from the IRS system, but he did not achieve his purpose", the text says. It does not specify how much of the tax information could have been obtained through that tool.
