A former government contractor who pleaded guilty to leaking a classified intelligence report on Russian election interference has asked a federal judge to let her serve the remainder of her prison sentence in home confinement.
Reality Winner, 28, said late last week that she suffers from bulimia and a respiratory illness that could make her more vulnerable to contracting the coronavirus in the Texas prison where she is being held. She was sentenced to five years and three months in prison in August 2018.
“Reality signed up to serve her sentence under the care, custody, and safety of the Bureau of Prisons — she did not agree (nor did this Court require her) to be confined to an institution that was caught unprepared for this virus (having, among other things, run out of hand sanitizer), placed in close quarters with other inmates in a facility that has already been infested by this deadly and contagious disease, literally putting her health and life in danger,” her attorney Joe Whitley wrote in a court filing on April 10.
Winner was the first person prosecuted by the Trump administration for leaking classified information. She was arrested in June 2017, at about the same time the Intercept published a copy of a report that described Russia’s attempts to gain access to local election offices. The Intercept said it does not know where the document came from.
Other prominent prisoners have also asked to be released amid the pandemic. Lawyer Michael Avenatti, who represented porn star Stormy Daniels in her legal cases against President Trump, was granted temporary release last week. Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is also seeking an early release.
