Samantha DeForest-Davis, 24, was sentenced to two years of supervised probation with 200 hours of community service and given a suspended sentence of 180 days in prison.
DeForest-Davis was also ordered to stay away from Hassan’s office and current and former staff, and to not use Tor or anonymized computer applications.
DeForest-Davis pleaded guilty on July 30 to the federal charge of aiding and abetting computer fraud, and to the District of Columbia charge of attempted tampering with evidence, according to a statement issued by the Department of Justice.
According to the statement, DeForest-Davis had been employed by Hassan and was also friends with Jackson Cosko, a former colleague at the office who had been fired in May 2018.
In what police have dubbed a “doxxing” scheme, DeForest-Davis helped Cosko, 27, burgle the senator’s office, where he illegally accessed Senate computers and stole information from them between July and October 2018.
The publication claims Cosko also publicized information about Kentucky’s senior U.S. senator, Mitch McConnell, and then-Sen. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
It states that Cosko felt compelled to release the sensitive information after becoming enraged about the senators’ support for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, amid the sexual allegations made against him.
By August 2018, DeForest-Davis began to suspect that Cosko was breaking into the senator’s office and stealing information from Senate computers, yet she failed to report him.
On the night of Oct. 2, 2018, DeForest-Davis agreed to lend Cosko her keys to the senator’s office with the understanding that he would unlawfully enter the office to access Senate computers.
DeForest-Davis agreed to lend her keys to Cosko in return for money for her rent, according to Courthouse News Service.
Cosko then used the keys to break into the office that night and accessed information from a Senate computer.
However, he fled when he was spotted by another worker in the office who then reported the break-in to U.S. Capitol Police.
The morning after the break-in, Cosko returned the keys to DeForest-Davis and persuaded her to “wipe down” the computers, keyboards, and computer mice in the senator’s office in a bid to destroy any evidence of the burglary.
When DeForest-Davis did what Cosko had instructed her to do, she was seen by another employee who had entered the building early.
Cosko pleaded guilty to five federal offenses, including two counts of making public restricted personal information, and one count each of computer fraud, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice.
He was sentenced to four years in prison.
