Medical worker sentenced in Ginsberg health data leak

A former health care worker who illegally leaked the health records of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sentenced to two years in prison on Thursday. 

Trent Russell, 34, worked as the transplant coordinator at Washington Regional Transplant Community when Ginsburg was undergoing cancer treatment in 2019.

The Bellevue, Neb. native had access to records throughout the region and was convicted earlier this year of illegally accessing health care records and destroying or altering records at a jury trial. 

Russell admitted being active on 4chan, an online message board known for trafficking in dark conspiracy theories, when he released the records, fueling antisemitic conspiracy theories that Democrats were trying to cover up a falsified Ginsburg death to control the Supreme Court. Ginsburg served on the Supreme Court until her death in 2020 at age 87. 

Russell denied all charges, suggesting his cat might have walked across the keyboard and accidentally called up Ginsburg’s data, according to Associated Press reports. An FBI agent who scanned Russell’s hard drive said she found indications that he had visited multiple posts on the forum involving the theory. 

A jury in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., found him not guilty of wrongfully disclosing the information but convicted him of illegally accessing Ginsburg’s private medical data and tampering with records in a federal investigation. 

U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff determined the 24-month sentence and called Russell’s crime “truly despicable conduct.” 

“You have made it extremely difficult to understand what motivated you,” Nachmanoff said. He added that Russell worsened the situation by lying to investigators and on the witness stand.