Salvador Rizzo reports:
A former medical worker who was convicted of illegally accessing Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s hospital records as she underwent cancer treatment in 2019 was sentenced Thursday to two years in prison after a judge excoriated his “truly despicable conduct” and “stunning lack of empathy.”
Trent J. Russell admitted he was active on 4chan, an online message board known for trafficking in dark conspiracy theories. A screenshot showing the dates and types of cancer treatments Ginsburg received at George Washington University Hospital in the final years of her life appeared on the message board shortly after Russell accessed the same data. It fueled an antisemitic conspiracy theory that Democratic politicians were covering up the liberal justice’s death to prevent President Donald Trump from naming a more conservative replacement.
Read more at The Washington Post.
Russell’s sentence may be the stiffest prison sentence I can recall ever seeing for an employee misusing their access and then sharing protected health information on social media, even though it’s important to note that he was not convicted on the wrongful disclosure charge. He was sentenced to 24 months on a destruction of records charge with 12 months on the second count of unlawful access to individual health information to be served concurrently.