By Thomas Lifson
Until this week, Sam Brinton, formerly hailed as the first “non-binary” senior federal official as head of nuclear waste management has avoided jail or prison, despite two guilty pleas for luggage theft at airports in Las Vegas and Minneapolis. But with his arrest as a fugitive accused of a third luggage theft at Reagan National Airport in Washington, he is about to experience life as a jailbird. Marjorie Hernandez of the New York Post reports:
Non-binary former nuclear official Sam Brinton is to be placed in a men’s jail in Maryland while waiting to be sent to Virginia over suitcase theft charges.
A Montgomery County Sheriff’s deputy told The Post Tuesday that Brinton is in a “pre-placement” hold at the county jail and should be housed with the “general population” of the men’s jail sometime next week.
Under the Montgomery County Department of Correction and Rehabilitation policy, inmates are processed and housed according to their biological sex.
The policy states: “Although MCDOCR does not consider anatomical changes brought about by hormonal therapy to be changes that constitute a change of anatomical sex, the classification of an arrestee/inmate will depend on whether the arrestee/inmate has male or female genitalia, whether they present a management or security problem, and whether their health and safety can be ensured.
“Once an inmate is classified, they will be given a housing assignment based on that classification.”
Brinton, 35 — who uses they/them pronouns — was arrested at their home last week and is facing Grand Larceny charges over the alleged theft of a case belonging to a Tanzanian fashion designer from Ronald Reagan National Airport.
I sincerely hope that Brinton avoids being victimized by rape, which is all too common in American correctional facilities – a national scandal that gets far too little attention. Perhaps his high profile or the good leadership I hope is in place in Maryland and Virginia will help him avoid that fate. But a twin problem of that scandal is the jailhouse rape that takes place when violent biological males are placed in women’s detention facilities because they claim to be women.
It may be that the theft at Reagan National will draw actual incarceration because the victim in that case was Asya Khamsin, a Tanzanian clothing designer currently living in Houston, whose one-of-a-kind creations were allegedly stolen and then modeled and photographed in public by Brinton. That hubris of his led to Khamsin reporting the theft to police in Houston, which ultimately led to his arrest in Maryland. Because her life’s work and intellectual property, not just some dresses, were stolen, the crime and extent of victimization was greater than the other two thefts.
In Virginia, grand larceny, VA Law 18.2-95, is defined as a theft of over $1000 in value and carries a potential prison term of up to 20 years.
Brinton’s former job carried awesome responsibilities considering the lethality of plutonium and other nuclear waste. That someone guilty of the crime of stealing other people’s luggage was so entrusted speaks volumes about the irresponsibility of Biden’s appointment.