The former Biden administration official charged with two separate cases of theft of luggage in different states was ordered to pay one of his victims but was not sentenced to prison, Tuesday after they pleaded not guilty to the freak robbery.
Samuel Brinton, who is non-binary and uses their pronouns, was given a 180-day suspended prison sentence for picking up a woman’s suitcase from Las Vegas’ Harry Reid International Airport in July 2022, according to documents from the court obtained from Fox. As part of the plea deal, Brinton was charged with a misdemeanor instead of a felony.
A judge ordered them to pay $3,670.74 in compensation for the stolen luggage, which contained expensive jewelry, clothing, and makeup. The 35-year-old man was captured on surveillance footage while wearing a white T-shirt with a large rainbow-colored atomic nuclear symbol, which Brinton was also captured in an Instagram photo they posted later that day.
The 35-year-old was working as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Waste and Spent Fuel Disposal at the Energy Department’s Bureau of Nuclear Energy when they committed the fashion crime but has since been fired. Brinton still faces felony charges in a similar case which he claims he attacked again two months after the incident while traveling to Minnesota from Washington, DC.
They were caught on camera removing a woman’s Vera Bradley bag from the baggage carousel in Minneapolis-St. Paul and remove the owner’s tag before sneaking out, prosecutors say. Brinton, who was caught using the suitcase on at least two other occasions, admitted to investigators that she had impounded the suitcase, but said it was an accident and she was willing to return it along with its contents, worth $2,325.
Houston stylist Asya Khamsin told The Post in February that she also believes Brinton may have been involved in a third case of baggage lifting. He says he noticed photos of the White House official in his tailored pieces that went missing at a Washington, DC, airport in 2018, four years before the Nevada and Minnesota cases.
Khamsin, who had traveled to the capital for a fashion show, was forced to leave and his clothes were never recovered. Brinton was not charged in that case.
