Former President Donald Trump pardoned some dubious characters before exiting the White House in disgrace, but one of them, a friend of Jared Kushner’s, just got slapped with state charges, the Daily News reports. Former New York Observer editor-in-chief Ken Kurson may have been gifted with a pardon from the twice-impeached one-term president, but it looks like he will likely face justice. Kurson was hit with state harassment charges on Wednesday — nearly eight months after he was given a last-minute pardon from Trump, wiping away federal charges for the same alleged cyberstalking campaign, according to the outlet.
“Ken Kurson, 52, the former editor-in-chief of the New York Observer, was charged last year in Brooklyn Federal Court with stalking and harassing three victims he blamed for his 2015 divorce,” the report states.
Kurson arrived in court in handcuffs.
“The felony eavesdropping and harassment charges filed by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance revolve around the same alleged conduct,” the outlet reports. “Kurson arrived in Manhattan Supreme Court in handcuffs, sporting beige slacks and a blue gingham shirt.”
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“We will not accept presidential pardons as get-out-of-jail-free cards for the well-connected in New York,” Vance said in a news release. “As alleged in the complaint, Mr. Kurson launched a campaign of cybercrime, manipulation, and abuse from his perch at the New York Observer, and now the people of New York will hold him accountable.”
“Kurson allegedly wrote negative online reviews of some of his victims using aliases and visited their places of work,” the report adds. He also took photographs of two of his victims’ workplaces and inquired about one’s work schedule, creeping out coworkers, prosecutors said.”
Vance tweeted out a statement.
We will not accept presidential pardons as get-out-of-jail-free cards for the well-connected in New York. https://t.co/QvVNENEoN5
— Cyrus Vance, Jr. (@ManhattanDA) August 18, 2021
Kurson sounds like a really creepy guy.
“The criminal complaint filed in New York County Criminal Court alleges that for six months beginning in September 2015, Kurson, a one-time Trump speechwriter and close friend of Jared Kushner, used spyware to access communications of his then-wife,” The Daily Beast reports.
“Kurson was pardoned by Trump earlier this year after he was arrested in October on charges of cyberstalking three people and harassing two others in a scheme to punish people he viewed as responsible for the collapse of his marriage,” the outlet adds.
We hope this news sends chills down the spines of some of the other characters that Trump pardoned on his way out.
Featured image via Presidencia de la República Mexicana/Flickr, under Creative Commons license 2.0
