New York Daily News

Editor who got Trump pardon cleared again

- BY MOLLY CRANE-NEWMAN NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

The former editor of the New York Observer, Ken Kurson — among those who scored a last-minute presidenti­al pardon from Donald Trump before he left the White House — saw his name cleared again on Thursday.

Kurson, a close friend of Jared Kushner, copped to a harassment violation in Manhattan Criminal Court, withdrawin­g his February 2022 guilty plea to misdemeano­r charges for stalking his wife online.

Kurson wiped clean his criminal record after attending 100 hours of community service and not getting rearrested for a year, per the terms of the deal. His case has been sealed.

In August 2021, Manhattan prosecutor­s charged Kurson with installing spyware on his wife’s computer to monitor her keystrokes and steal her passwords to access her email and social media accounts.

Kurson (photo), who was tapped to run the Observer’s newsroom in 2013 by its then-owner Kushner, launched a campaign of cybercrime, manipulati­on, and abuse against his now ex-wife from his desk at the Observer on W. 44th St. near Eighth Ave. from September 2015 to March 2016, authoritie­s said.

Seven months earlier, in January 2021, Kurson was pardoned by President Trump in connection with similar charges in Brooklyn Federal Court.

The 54-year-old was busted for cyber harassing and stalking three people he felt were responsibl­e for his divorce in October 2020. Kurson was accused of writing negative online reviews of some of his victims using aliases, visiting their jobs, taking pictures and questionin­g coworkers, prosecutor­s said.

Kurson, of Maplewood, N.J., worked as a speechwrit­er for Rudy Giuliani and wrote a speech for Trump during his 2016 run for president.

His downfall followed an FBI background check in 2018 after Trump considered his appointmen­t to a federal government position. The feds found Kurson had used false aliases — like “Jayden Wagner” and “Eddie Train” — to mount online harassment campaigns, according to court records.

The Manhattan DA’s office declined to comment on Thursday’s outcome.

Kurson’s lawyer Marc Mukasey did not return calls seeking comment.

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