RBG Medical Records Hacker Can’t Undo Criminal Conviction (1)

A conviction will stand for a man accused of obtaining, destroying, and altering Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s medical records from her 2018-2019 treatment at DC’s George Washington University Hospital, a federal appeals court said Tuesday.

Trent Russell, who formerly worked for a firm with access to the hospital’s systems, failed to show the lower court erred during his trial by excluding evidence tending to show he was coerced into admitting he looked at Ginsburg’s records or that co-workers could have used his log-in to access the files, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said. Additionally, the trial court didn’t err by denying Russell’s motion for acquittal, it said in an opinion written by Chief Judge Albert Diaz for a unanimous court.

Hackers and others are well known to target the medical records of famous people, but there are laws against that that carry severe penalties—Russell was sentenced to 24 months imprisonment following his conviction on two of the three charges against him.

Screenshots of Ginsburg’s medical records relating to her treatment at GWU hospital were posted on the internet in 2019. Investigators subsequently focused on Russell, who worked for a company that had access to the hospital’s records. Two federal law enforcement agents interviewed Russell at his workplace, with the company’s CEO present.

Russell asked the lower court to exclude statements from the interview at trial, saying the CEO’s presence coerced him into admitting facts suggesting his guilt. But the lower court properly allowed the jury to hear the statements, the Fourth Circuit said.

The agents had told Russell the interview was entirely voluntary and he could leave at any time, the appeals court said. They hadn’t asked the CEO to join them, and they hadn’t threatened Russell with the loss of his job. The “mere presence” of an employer didn’t constitute an implicit threat to his employment, it added.

The trial court didn’t abuse its discretion by prohibiting Russell from cross-examining a witness about Russell’s tendency to share log-in information with co-workers, potentially shifting blame to them, the appeals court said. Russell’s attorney didn’t follow through on other suggested ways for exploring this line of defense.

There were other ways for Russell to elicit this information, the Fourth Circuit said. He could have testified directly, for example, that he shared passwords with coworkers, at which point his attorney could have recalled the witness for more questioning.

Russell’s motion for acquittal was properly denied, the appeals court also said.

Russell argued he shouldn’t have been convicted of violating a statute that prohibits obtaining, without authorization, the individually identifiable health information of another that’s maintained by a health-care entity because the screenshot of RBG’s records didn’t disclose her illness or her doctors’ names. The court rejected this “crabbed view of the statute,” saying the information the screenshot disclosed—including where the justice was being treated, her arrival and discharge dates, and the medical services provided—was well within the heart of the law.

Judges Robert B. King and Stephanie D. Thacker joined the opinion.

Burnham & Gorokhov PLLC represented Russell.

The case is United States v. Russell, 4th Cir., No. 24-cr-4620, 4/14/26.