Do you all remember that guy who always dressed up like a woman who was a member of President Joe Biden’s Energy Department? His name is Samuel Brinton if that rings a bell. He got booted from his rather influential position within the agency after he was caught on video allegedly stealing luggage at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.
You’d think this guy would be going for an extended vacation in a oh so not glorious resort complete with bars on the windows and doors after doing such a crime, right? Even if it’s only a minor sentence? Nope. He dodged the proverbial bullet. How did he manage to do so?
Eight News Now is reporting that Brinton escaped jail time by agreeing to pay the victim of the crime more than $3,500 in restitution and was also given a suspended jail sentence, which means he’s not going to serve a single second in prison, as long as he can keep himself out of trouble.
The Daily Wire reported that an arrest warrant was issued for Brinton back in December for the crime of grand larceny with a value between $1,200 and $5,000.
“Brinton pleaded ‘no contest’ to misdemeanor theft, which is categorized as an amount less than $1,200, after he was initially charged with a felony when police believed the amount was $3,670, the report said,” the report continued.
“Investigators stated that ‘a white male adult wearing a white T-shirt with a large rainbow colored atomic nuclear symbol design’ was captured on security camera footage grabbing the woman’s bag before leaving the airport,” it added.
“Brinton demonstrated several signs of abnormal behavior while taking the victim’s luggage which are cues suspects typically give off when committing luggage theft,” investigators in Las Vegas went on to write in their report concerning the incident. “Specifically, Brinton pulled the victim’s luggage from the carousel and examined the tag.”
“Then placing it back on the carousel, looking in all directions for anyone who might be watching, or might approach,” the report added. “Pulling it back off the carousel and demonstrating the same behavior by looking around before walking away with it quickly. Brinton only having checked one piece of luggage, which Brinton had already claimed from the carousel, had no reason to be examining and taking any other pieces of luggage.”
Just to give you a picture of the kind of guy we’re talking about here, Brinton caused a rather big stir due to his role in the federal government, but also for dressing in drag and constantly bragging online about his puppy role-play fetish. If that doesn’t make you cringe, nothing will.
Brinton first started taking heat last November for allegedly stealing a woman’s luggage in Minneapolis.
“He reportedly flew into Minneapolis−Saint Paul International Airport with American Airlines just before 4:30 p.m. from Washington, D.C. According to the complaint, Brinton traveled without a checked bag, indicating he had no purpose to claim a bag after landing,” the Daily Wire said.
The complaint against Brinton alleges that he left the airport in an Uber, later checking into the InterContinental St. Paul Riverfront hotel with the blue bag. He then came back to MSP just two days later, on Sept. 18, and then flew back to D.C. with the same bag.
Check out further details from the Daily Wire:
Records and video surveillance showed the suitcase belonged to a female passenger who flew into the MSP on a Delta flight from New Orleans. According to a report, she notified law enforcement that her bag and the contents inside — valued at around $2,325 — had gone missing in the baggage claim area on the same day Brinton allegedly took the luggage.
Nearly three weeks later, the criminal complaint alleges, video surveillance footage from Dulles International Airport in Virginia captured Brinton returning from Europe with the bag on October 9. Authorities contacted Brinton that same day, asking if he “took anything that did not belong” to him.
“Not that I know of,” Brinton allegedly went on to say in response, but later he confessed to taking the bag.
Brinton is alleged to have phoned police just two hours later where he apologized for not being “completely honest,” saying that he took the bag, thinking it was his, due to being in a state of exhaustion. The report then says that the complaint alleges that once Brinton realized the bag was not his he “got nervous” and “didn’t know what to do.”
Brinton was lucky and dodged a potential sentence of up to 10 years in prison. However, if he ends up convicted of the charges he is now facing in Minnesota, he might still end up serving five years behind bars, along with a $10,000 fine.
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