Former senior Department of Energy official Sam Brinton, who self-identifies as “openly genderfluid,” was caught on camera stealing luggage last year and has now been ordered to pay $3,670 in restitution to the victim.
Brinton was spared jail time after pleading no contest Wednesday to the theft.
Instead a 180-day suspended sentence was delivered for Brinton’s walking away with a woman’s suitcase from Las Vegas‘ Harry Reid International Airport in July 2022, according to court records obtained by Fox 5.
The MIT grad was fired soon after the incident was made public.
As part of the plea deal, Brinton was also charged with a misdemeanor instead of a felony.
The 35-year-old was originally seen on surveillance footage wearing a white T-shirt with a large rainbow-colored atomic nuclear symbol design. Brinton was also caught wearing the same in an Instagram photo posted later that day, as Breitbart News reported.
The sentencing occurred in Las Vegas, Nevada.
File/Sam Brinton is seen during The Trevor Project’s TrevorLIVE LA 2019 at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on November 17, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Tasia Wells/Getty Images for The Trevor Project)
File/Sam Brinton attends Evening Tea at Playboy Playhouse on June 22, 2019 in New York City. (Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Playboy)
In addition to the sentence Brinton, who had been responsible for nuclear fuel and radioactive waste, was instructed by a judge to avoid engaging in any further criminal activity, as per the court documents in Las Vegas.
Prior to his appointment with the Biden administration, Brinton openly opposed LGBT conversion therapy, describing it as “pretty much mental torture.”