A second aide to Democrat senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) has been sentenced for her role in assisting a former staffer to break into the senator’s office to hack computers and obtain the names and personal information of Republican politicians.
The aide, Samantha DeForest-Davis, is the second Hassan staffer to be sentenced in the burglary-and-doxing case.
Her collaborator, Jackson Cosko, pleaded guilty to five federal offenses in June after hacking Senate computers to obtain similar information on Republicans, an act he said was spurred by anger at the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. He was sentenced to four years in prison.
DeForest-Davis has been sentenced to a suspended sentence of 180 days in prison, together with 200 hours of community service and two years of supervised probation.
According to a Justice Department spokesperson, DeForest-Davis has also been ordered to “stay away from [Hassan’s] office to include current and former staff, and to not use Tor or anonymized computer applications.”
Court House News reported that the sentence showed “leniency” from the federal judge who imposed it.
DeForest-Davis initially lied to the police, telling them that she knew nothing about Cosko’s actions.
In fact, the staffer provided Cosko with keys to the office of Sen. Hassan, allowing him to break in and hack into congressional computers. Cosko used this access to obtain and publish the home addresses of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), and former Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT).
DeForest-Davis also admitted to wiping down Senate computers in an attempt to remove Cosko’s fingerprints.
Prosecutors recommended a sentence of six months of house arrest and five years of probation, or 600 hours of community service if the judge opted against house arrest.
Instead, the judge handed down the more lenient sentence of 200 hours of community service and 2 years supervised probation.
“This sentence really is meant to help you,” said the Reagan-appointed judge, addressing DeForest-Davis in court.
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Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.
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