Pardon isn’t perfect
Trump let Jared pal off hook, but he faces state rap
A close friend of Jared Kushner was slapped with state harassment charges Wednesday — seven months after he scored a last-minute pardon from President Donald Trump wiping away federal charges for the same alleged cyberstalking campaign.
Ken Kurson, 52, the former editor in chief of the New York Observer, is charged with harassing and spying on his wife, whom he divorced in 2015. He allegedly monitored his wife’s computer activity and leaked her private messages as their marriage fell apart.
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. said in a statement that Kurson’s powerful friends wouldn’t help him avoid justice this time around.
“We will not accept presidential pardons as get-out-of-jail-free cards for the well-connected in New York,” Vance said. “Mr. Kurson launched a campaign of cybercrime, manipulation and abuse from his perch at the New York Observer, and now the people of New York will hold him accountable.”
Kurson (left) is charged with two felonies — eavesdropping and computer trespassing. He arrived in Manhattan Supreme Court in handcuffs, sporting beige slacks and a blue gingham shirt.
Kurson’s attorney Marc Mukasey did not comment.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn first detailed the creepy conduct last year. They alleged that Kurson stalked and harassed three victims he blamed for his nasty divorce. Kurson allegedly wrote negative online reviews of some of his victims using aliases and visited their places of work. He also took photographs of two his victims’ workplaces and inquired about one’s work schedule, weirding out co-workers, the feds said.
In his final hours in office, Trump pardoned Kurson while the case was still pending.
The new state charges are narrower than the federal case, but focus on the same time period.
Kurson used spyware software on a computer belonging to his then-wife to monitor her web activity and keystrokes, and access her Gmail and Facebook accounts, Vance’s prosecutors charge. Kurson then anonymously disseminated her private Facebook messages, according to a complaint. Kurson was still living with his wife at the time of the alleged surveillance. He did most of the spying from the Observer newsroom on W. 44th St. in Midtown, prosecutors say.
Kurson was first investigated in 2018 after Trump nominated him to the board of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The appointment came with a background check that reportedly alarmed authorities.
When announcing the pardon, the White House said the probe began only because of the nomination to the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Kushner (above right), who owned the Observer, hired Kurson to run the paper in 2013.
Kushner transferred ownership of the Observer to a family trust when he became a top White House adviser in the Trump administration. Kurson left the paper in 2017.