VA Man Who Accessed Justice Ginsburg's Health Records Sentenced

ARLINGTON, VA — A former Arlington man who was convicted July 31 of obtaining the late Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s personal healthcare information and destroying evidence in a federal investigation, was sentenced to two years in prison.

From 2017 to 2019, 34-year-old Trent James Russell worked for an organ donation coordination service that allowed him to gain access to electronic medical records, according to court documents. With this access, Russell located Ginsburg’s health records in January 2019 and took a screenshot of those records.

While Ginsburg’s name was redacted from all the court records in the case, The Associated Press reported that “all sides openly acknowledged that Ginsburg was the victim of the privacy breach.”

Ginsburg served on the court until her death in 2020.

Once Russell’s actions were discovered, his access to the health records was disabled on Feb. 10, 2019, according to court documents. Two days later, he formatted his hard drive, so that he could destroy and alter the evidence, investigators say.

When questioned by FBI agents on Feb. 21, 2019, Russell lied about his cellphone having been stolen, according to court records. He then gave his secondary hard drive to investigators, instead of giving them the primary operating system drive, an action authorities described as an attempt to obstruct the investigation, according to court records.

Russell, who now lives in Bellevue, Nebraska, was also charged with publishing that information on the internet in 2019, at a time when public speculation about Ginsburg’s health and her ability to serve as a justice was a matter of public debate, the AP said.

Prosecutors said he posted the information along with a false claim that Ginsburg had already died. But the jury acquitted Russell on that count.

U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff called Russell's crime “truly despicable conduct.”

“You have made it extremely difficult to understand what motivated you,” Nachmanoff said at the sentencing hearing. He said Russell made matters worse by lying to investigators and on the witness stand.

“You chose to blame your cat,” Nachmanoff said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.