A former Inner Income Service contractor who stole and leaked the tax returns of former President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Ken Griffin and different billionaires was sentenced to 5 years in jail.

Charles Littlejohn, 38, pleaded responsible Oct. 12 to stealing Trump’s tax information from the IRS and leaking it to the New York Occasions.

He additionally admitted taking tax details about 1000’s of different rich People, together with Jeff Bezos, that he handed to ProPublica. The choose known as it the most important heist in IRS historical past and “an insupportable assault on our constitutional democracy.”

U.S. District Decide Ana Reyes imposed the utmost sentence on Littlejohn, who had stated in court docket papers that he acted out of “a deep, ethical perception” that People had a proper to know the knowledge, and sharing it was the one option to change a tax system that favors the rich.

“He focused the sitting president of america of America and that’s distinctive by any matter,” Reyes stated at a listening to Monday in Washington. “If you goal the workplace of the president, you goal democracy.”

In a current memo to the court docket, Littlejohn’s attorneys stated he expressed regret for his actions, saying they’d “had undermined the IRS, breached the general public belief, and violated the privateness of 1000’s of American taxpayers.”

Littlejohn was alarmed when Trump took workplace in 2017 and refused to make his tax data public, they wrote. He was employed by an IRS marketing consultant and vowed to “attempt to entry the President’s tax returns if given the chance,” they stated.

Reyes stated his motivations have been a poor excuse for breaking the regulation.

‘Ethical Crucial’

“I imagine you sincerely felt an ethical crucial,” the choose stated. “I’ve thought deeply about your motivations and I additionally wish to deter others who might need felt an ethical obligation to interrupt the regulation.”

Courtroom data present Littlejohn took elaborate steps to steal 15 years of Trump’s tax data and canopy his tracks earlier than he met with New York Occasions reporters. He first gave the tax information to the Occasions in August 2019, serving to reporters analyze the info after which stole further tax data, data present.