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A maryland A state senator has been charged with federal charges including extortion related to her 2022 campaign for a state House seat for conspiring to threaten to release explicit video of a former adviser’s affair.
State Senator Dalya Attar, A baltimore The Democrat was charged in a federal indictment unsealed Thursday, along with her brother, Joseph Attar, and Kalman Finkelstein, a former Baltimore police officer who worked on her campaign. The indictment says the group conspired to silence a former adviser by making public a video of him being in bed with a married man.
The indictment says the purpose of the conspiracy was to obtain evidence that could be used to prevent the former adviser from saying negative things about the legislator’s campaign.
According to the indictment, there were secret recordings of Attar’s former political advisor in bed with a married man with recording devices disguised as smoke detectors. The consultant was living in an apartment owned by Finkelstein’s family at the time.
According to the indictment, the recording was to be used to potentially sabotage marriage efforts for the consultant’s daughter.
According to the indictment, Dalya Attar wrote in a WhatsApp message, “She wants her daughters to get married more than me.”
Dalya Attar apparently had a falling out with the adviser, causing her to worry about future comments about her campaign, but the indictment provides no details about the disagreement.
According to the indictment, in January 2020, Dalia Attar sent a series of WhatsApp messages to a co-conspirator, saying that two years later the adviser “still wants to harass me badly”.
The indictment says Joseph Attar approached the man with whom the consultant was recorded sleeping to share this message: “Leave Dalya alone.”
According to the indictment, Joseph Attar allegedly told the man to tell the counselor, “Don’t bring him up to anyone anymore.” “Stay away from this election, the representative election. And make sure he doesn’t do anything against Dalya in this whole election.”
None of the defendants had an attorney listed in online court records.
Dalya Attar is the first Orthodox Jewish woman to serve in the Maryland Senate. She was first elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 2018 for her Baltimore district and a former consultant worked on that campaign. Earlier this year, he was appointed to an open Maryland Senate seat to fill a vacancy.
The eight-count indictment charges him with multiple counts of conspiracy, extortion through interstate communications, aiding and abetting, interception and wire disclosure.
The indictment says she conspired with her brother and Finkelstein to prevent the consultant from communicating to members of the Orthodox Jewish community in his district about her voting record.
If the adviser did not refrain from commenting about the election, Joseph Attar reportedly told the man: “I will share this video with everyone you know, everyone she knows, every rabbi in town, your children, your wife, his daughters.”