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Maryland State Senator Dalya Attar faces an indictment for reportedly recording two opponents in a compromising situation to intimidate them into silence.
The indictment, revealed on October 23, accuses the 35-year-old senator of using tracking and recording devices to capture her adversaries engaged in intimate acts.
Prosecutors claim Attar threatened to disclose the footage unless her demands for their silence were met, thereby preventing them from voicing opposition publicly.
She is now confronted with eight federal charges, including extortion and conspiracy, tied to this alleged scheme, which reportedly took place before the 2020 and 2022 elections.
The purported victim of her plan was a political consultant, whom Attar allegedly recorded in bed with a married individual.
The Democrat state senator has held office since 2019, and was the first Orthodox Jewish woman to serve on the Maryland State Senate when she was selected to fill a vacant seat in January.
She has been recognized as the highest ranking Orthodox Jewish woman in US history, and is currently in a hotly contested re-election campaign to retain her senate seat.
Court records first reported by the Baltimore Sun showed that Attar is in federal custody, along with her brother Joseph Attar and another man named as Kalman Finkelstein, a city police officer.
Maryland State Senator Dalya Attar has been indicted after allegedly filming two of her rivals in bed together in an attempt to silence them
Attar, seen with Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff, has been recognized as the highest ranking Orthodox Jewish woman in US history
According to the indictment, Attar, her brother and Finkelstein worked with four unnamed co-conspirators to carry out the clandestine scheme.
Attar had worked with the political consultant, who was identified as a dual US and Israeli citizen, during her 2018 election, but the two parted ways soon after due to some form of disagreement.
Their spat led Attar to fear that the consultant was ‘looking to screw me’, she allegedly said, and she was concerned about flyers being released to the Jewish community about her voting record.
The state legislator also wanted to use the blackmail to disrupt the consultant’s daughter’s ‘shidduchim’, a marriage matchmaking ceremony in the Orthodox Jewish community, prosecutors said.
In a WhatsApp voice message sent in 2020, Attar allegedly said: ‘I just want her [the consultant] to be non-issue in my mind and in reality that won’t happen as long as she is relevant or doesn’t have anything worry about.’
According to prosecutors, the plot began in January 2020 when the consultant stayed in an apartment that belonged to Finkelstein’s family, and the cop and Attar’s brother broke into the unit while she was away.
Attar, pictured with Oprah, allegdly targeted a consultant she had worked with on a previous election that she had a falling out with, and was concerned the consultant would distribute flyers on her voting record to the Jewish community
Attar, seen with her two children, is facing eight federal charges of extortion and conspiracy related to the alleged plot
Attar is facing eight federal charges of extortion and conspiracy related to the alleged plot, which prosecutors said occurred in the run-up to the 2020 and 2022 elections
The two men allegedly installed cameras disguised as smoke detectors inside, and planted a tracking device on the consultant’s car.
Five days later, Joseph messaged a WhatsApp group of the conspirators when a man entered the apartment, saying: ‘We have a visitor…’, per the indictment.
Attar then allegedly had her brother Joseph threaten the consultant and the married man in March 2021 with the release of the video unless the consultant would ‘leave Dalya alone.’
Attar allegedly said that blackmail could be ‘the perfect way to scare’ the consultant out of distributing flyers about her voting record.
In November 2021, Attar allegedly sent a message to her brother and one of the unnamed co-conspirators, saying that ‘if that video really exists, it’ll be really helpful now.’
It is unclear if the video was ever released.
The Baltimore Banner reported that Finkelstein’s police powers were suspended in 2022, and he has been placed on administrative duty.
Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson’s office said in a statement following news of Attar’s indictment: ‘This is the first we have been made aware of state Senator Dayla Attar’s arrest and we don’t have any additional information to provide at this time.
‘The Senate of Maryland holds its members to the highest ethical standards as we serve our constituents, and we will continue to do so as we learn more about the alleged facts in the indictment.’