What is the documented chain of custody and legal outcome for the Ashley Biden diary and who was prosecuted?
Executive summary
The diary left behind by Ashley Biden at a friend’s Delray Beach home in 2020 was taken by two Florida residents, Aimee Harris and Robert Kurlander, and ultimately delivered to operatives associated with Project Veritas after cash payments; both Harris and Kurlander pleaded guilty to federal charges for trafficking the stolen property and Harris received a one‑month prison sentence with supervised release [1] [2] [3] [4]. Federal prosecutors developed evidence tying Project Veritas to the transaction and fought, successfully in part, to overcome claims of reporter’s privilege as the investigation expanded [5] [6] [7].
1. How the diary left Ashley Biden’s possession and entered the hands of others
According to interviews and court documents, Ashley Biden stored personal effects, including a diary, in a spare room at a Delray Beach house and left them behind when she moved out in June 2020; Aimee Harris later moved into that home, discovered the items and told a friend she had found belongings labeled with Ms. Biden’s name [5] [1]. Harris then contacted Robert Kurlander and — by prosecutors’ account — the two conspired to traffic the diary and other personal effects, at first trying to sell the material to political operatives and later delivering it to people connected with Project Veritas [1] [3].
2. Project Veritas’ role and the cash payments
Prosecutors say Project Veritas paid Harris and Kurlander to obtain the materials; reporting contains consistent accounts of payments totaling roughly $40,000 split between the two finders, with documents and police reports showing Project Veritas operatives took custody of bags labeled with Ashley Biden’s name and later turned material over to law enforcement when questioned by police [2] [1]. Project Veritas and its lawyers have defended the group’s conduct as legitimate newsgathering, but federal filings treated the matter as a theft- and trafficking-related criminal case rather than a pure First Amendment dispute [2] [3].
3. Federal investigation, court fights and seizure of devices
The Justice Department and the FBI opened an investigation that included searches of Project Veritas operatives’ residences and seizures of electronic devices; Project Veritas’ attempts to assert a journalist’s privilege over some seized material were rejected in litigation, with a federal appeals court affirming a lower court decision limiting that claim after the two Florida defendants admitted stealing the diary [5] [6]. Prosecutors framed the case as a stolen-property and interstate trafficking matter and resisted treating the transfer as protected newsgathering in the investigatory context [7].
4. Guilty pleas, sentencing and unresolved details
Harris and Kurlander pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to traffic in stolen property as part of plea agreements with prosecutors, which narrowed the scope of legal exposure for the two Florida defendants [3]. Aimee Harris was sentenced to one month in prison followed by three years of supervised release and additional home confinement, a punishment that federal prosecutors said was intended in part to reflect the exploitation of intimate materials belonging to a public figure’s family member [4]. Reporting shows both were scheduled for sentencing hearings and that prosecutors did not initially seek lengthy prison terms; available sources do not provide a final, comparable sentence for Robert Kurlander in the material provided here [5] [7].
5. What the public record confirms and what remains limited
The public record in the cited reporting documents the diary’s discovery at the Delray Beach home, the transfer to Harris and Kurlander, cash payments tied to Project Veritas, guilty pleas by the two Florida defendants and at least one sentence imposed on Harris [1] [2] [3] [4]. The reporting also shows the Justice Department’s position that the matter was criminal theft and trafficking rather than protected reporting, but does not, in the supplied sources, reflect criminal charges brought against Project Veritas personnel themselves; litigation over seized devices and privilege claims proceeded in federal court [6] [7]. If definitive information is required about Kurlander’s final sentence or any non‑public prosecutorial decisions involving Project Veritas employees, those specifics are not contained in the sources provided here and would require further court records or DOJ releases to confirm.