Ken Kurson, a longtime friend and associate of former Trump White House advisor Jared Kushner, was arrested Wednesday on new criminal charges filed by the Manhattan district attorney, CNBC reports.
Kurson, 52, is charged with cyberstalking and criminal trespass for allegedly illegally accessing his then-wife’s communications in 2015 and 2016 while working as editor-in-chief of Observer Media Group, which at the time was owned by Kushner.
The new charges come months after he received a pardon from then-President Donald Trump for alleged cybercrimes against other individuals.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s office said Kurson used spyware to obtain passwords and log into his wife’s Gmail and Facebook accounts.
Prosecutors say he also illegally acquired and anonymously shared private Facebook messages.
Vance’s office is also continuing a criminal investigation of Trump’s company, the Trump Organization. Vance charged the company and its chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg earlier this summer with a years-long scheme to avoid paying taxes on executive compensation. The company and Weisselberg have pleaded not guilty.
Kurson, who lives in New Jersey, was arraigned in Manhattan court Wednesday afternoon and released on his own recognizance, according to the report.
While working at the Observer, Kurson advised Trump on a speech he gave to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 2016. He sat in the Trump family box at the Republican National Convention later that year.
In 2020, Kurson was charged with similar charges related to the alleged cyberstalking of three people. His first arrest came after he withdrew his name from consideration for a Trump administration appointment to the board of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The 2020 criminal complaint in a footnote says that in addition to the three victims in that case, “FBI Special Agents have also obtained evidence revealing that Kurson engaged in a similar pattern of harassment in relation to his divorce proceedings against other individuals between approximately September 2015 and December 2015.”
Before that federal case could go to trial, Trump pardoned Kurson in January on his way out of the White House.
