Maryland state senator indicted in federal court on extortion and conspiracy charges
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A Maryland state senator has been indicted on federal charges including extortion related to her 2022 campaign for a seat in the House of Representatives for allegedly conspiring to threaten the release of an explicit video of a former consultant’s affair.
State Sen. Dalya Attar, a Baltimore Democrat, was charged in a federal indictment unsealed Thursday involving her brother, Joseph Attar, and Kalman Finkelstein, a Baltimore police officer who worked on her campaign. The group conspired to silence a former consultant by making public a video of her in bed with a married man, the indictment says.
The purpose of the plot was to obtain evidence that could be used to stop the former consultant from saying negative things about the congressman’s campaign, the indictment says.
According to the indictment, there were secret recordings of Attar’s former political advisor in bed with a married man, equipped with recording devices disguised as smoke detectors. The consultant was living at the time in an apartment owned by the Finkelstein family.
The recording was intended to be used to potentially harm the consultant’s daughter’s matchmaking efforts, according to the indictment.
“She wants her daughters to get married more than she wants to fuck me,” Dalya Attar wrote in a WhatsApp message, according to the indictment.
Dalya Attar reportedly had a falling out with the consultant, which raised concerns about future comments about his campaign, but the indictment provides no details of the rift.
In January 2020, Dalya Attar sent a series of WhatsApp messages to a co-conspirator, claiming that two years later the consultant was “still looking to fuck me hard,” according to the indictment.
The indictment says Joseph Attar went to the house of the man the consultant had been recorded having sex with to deliver the message: “Leave Dalya alone.”
“Don’t tell anyone about it again,” Joseph Attar allegedly told the man to talk to the consultant, according to the indictment. “Stay out of this election, out of the delegate election. And make sure she doesn’t do anything against Dalya throughout this election.”
None of the defendants had an attorney listed in online court records.
Dalya Attar is the first Orthodox Jewish woman to serve in the Maryland Senate. She was first elected from her Baltimore district to the Maryland House of Delegates in 2018, and the former consultant worked on that campaign. Earlier this year, she was appointed to a vacant seat in the Maryland Senate to fill a vacancy.
She was charged in the eight-count indictment with multiple counts of conspiracy, extortion via interstate communications, aiding and abetting, interception and disclosure of a wire.
The indictment says she conspired with her brother and Finkelstein to prevent the consultant from telling members of the Orthodox Jewish community in her district about her voting history.
If the consultant did not refrain from commenting on the election, Joseph Attar allegedly told the man: “I will share this video with everyone you know, everyone she knows, all the rabbis in town, your children, your wife, her daughters.”
