Annapolis, Maryland– A Maryland state senator has been indicted on federal charges including racketeering related to her 2022 campaign for a state House seat for allegedly conspiring to threaten to release an explicit video of a former adviser’s affair.
State Sen. Dalia Attar, a Democrat from Baltimore, was charged in a federal indictment unsealed Thursday, which includes her brother, Joseph Attar, and Kalman Finkelstein, a Baltimore police officer who worked on her campaign. The indictment said the group conspired to silence a former counselor by publishing a video of her in bed with a married man.
The purpose of the conspiracy was to obtain evidence that could be used to prevent the former adviser from saying negative things about the representative’s campaign, the indictment said.
According to the indictment, there were secret recordings of Al-Attar’s former political advisor in bed with a married man with recording devices disguised as smoke detectors. The advisor was staying at the time in an apartment owned by the Finkelstein family.
The purpose of the recording was to harm the reconciliation efforts of the counselor’s daughter, according to the indictment.
“She wants to marry her daughters more than she wants to have sex with me,” Dalia Attar wrote in a WhatsApp message, according to the indictment.
Dalia Al-Attar appears to have fallen out with the chancellor, raising concerns about future comments about her campaign, but the indictment does not provide any details about the break-up.
In January 2020, Dalia Attar sent a series of WhatsApp messages to one of the co-conspirators, saying that two years later, “the advisor still seeks to severely corrupt me,” according to the indictment.
The indictment stated that Joseph Al-Attar went to the man with whom the advisor was recorded sleeping to share the message with him: “Leave Dalia alone.”
Joseph Al-Attar allegedly asked the man to tell the counselor, according to the indictment, “not to expose her to anyone anymore.” “Stay out of this election, the delegate election. And make sure she doesn’t do anything against Dahlia throughout this election.”
None of the defendants had an attorney listed in online court records.
Dalia Attar is the first Orthodox Jewish woman to serve in the Maryland State Senate. She was first elected from the Baltimore district to the Maryland House of Delegates in 2018, and served as a former adviser on that campaign. Earlier this year, she was appointed to an open seat in the Maryland Senate to fill a vacancy.
She is charged in the eight-count indictment with multiple counts of conspiracy, interstate racketeering, aiding and abetting, and wire interception and disclosure.
The indictment says she conspired with her brother and Finkelstein to prevent the chancellor from communicating with members of the Orthodox Jewish community in her district about her voting record.
If the advisor did not refrain from commenting on the elections, Joseph Attar allegedly told the man: “I will share this video with everyone you know, every person you know, every rabbi in the city, your children, your wife, her daughters.”