ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A former health care worker who illegally accessed the health records of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before she died was sentenced Thursday to two years in prison.
Trent Russell, 34, of Bellevue, Nebraska, who worked at the time as a transplant coordinator for the Washington Regional Transplant Community and had access to hospital records all over the region, was convicted earlier this year of illegally accessing health care records and destroying or altering records at a jury trial.
He 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. Prosecutors said he posted the information along with a false claim that Ginsburg had already died. But the jury acquitted Russell on that count.
Ginsburg served on the court until her death in 2020.
Prosecutors said Russell disclosed the health records on forums that trafficked in antisemitic conspiracy theories, including conspiracy theories that Ginsburg was dead, but Russell’s motivations for his actions were unclear. Indeed, Russell himself never admitted that he accessed the records, at one point suggesting that perhaps his cat walked across the keyboard in a way that mistakenly called up Ginsburg’s data.
Russell’s excuses and refusal to accept responsibility prompted blistering critiques from prosecutors, who sought a 30-month sentence.
“He offered completely implausible excuses with a straight face,” prosecutor Zoe Bedell said.
Russell’s lawyer, Charles Burnham, sought a sentence of probation or home detention. He cited Russell’s work saving lives as a transplant coordinator and his military record which included a deployment to Afghanistan as mitigating factors.
“Mr. Russell has lived a quietly heroic life,” Burnham wrote in court papers. He chalked up the criminal conduct to “being stupid.”
U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff’s 24-month sentence , calling his crime “truly despicable conduct.”
“You have made it extremely difficult to understand what motivated you,” Nachmanoff said. He said Russell made matters worse by lying to investigators and on the witness stand.
“You chose to blame your cat,” Nachmanoff said.
The court records in the case are carefully redacted to remove any reference to Ginsburg, but during the trial and at Thursday’s sentencing hearing, all sides openly acknowledged that Ginsburg was the victim of the privacy breach.
Her status as a public figure, in fact, prompted a debate about the severity of Russell’s crime. Prosecutors said her high public profile, in addition to her age and illness, made her a particularly vulnerable victim.
“He went with the Supreme Court justice who was old, who was sick, and whose sickness was a public concern,” Bedell argued.
Russell’s lawyer, on the other hand, argued that Ginsburg’s high office and the power that comes with it is the opposite of vulnerability.
Nachmanoff, in issuing his sentence, said he took into account the fact that Russell has a sick step parent who might need care. The judge noted “with some irony” that the details of the stepparent’s health problems are under seal.
“Why? Because it is sensitive health information — a benefit you did not provide to Justice Ginsburg,” he said.
Russell and his lawyer declined to comment after Thursday’s hearing on whether they plan to appeal.