Grand Juror Sentenced to Jail After Filming Court Proceedings

WASHINGTON -- A former Smithsonian Institution security guard was sentenced last week to eight months in jail after he taped criminal grand jury proceedings in D.C. Superior Court then posted them on Instagram and in group chats.

Alexander Hamilton was serving as a member of a grand jury when he secretly recorded nine grand jury sessions with his cellphone, some of them based on homicide investigations. He pleaded guilty to contempt of court and obstruction of justice.

The jurors were told the proceedings were secret when they were sworn in on Sept. 9, 2022. Just before he took the oath, Hamilton recorded a selfie in which he whispered, "I'm about to lie."

He texted his recordings to friends and posted them on Instagram Story and on Instagram Live, where he has about 10,000 followers. During one posting he called a grand jury witness a "vicious rat."

As evidence he knew his postings were illegal, prosecutors presented one of his Instagram messages in which Hamilton said that "they can lock you up for this … having your phone back here."

U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper ordered that he serve one year of probation after he is released from jail. Hamilton, 29, is the father of two children who worked as a special police officer at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

Prosecutors had argued for a three-year sentence after saying his offense "strikes at the heart of the criminal justice system."

"Knowing that individuals like Mr. Hamilton will scorn, abuse, humiliate and even possibly harm them, makes victims and witnesses to crime reluctant to cooperate, justifiably fearful of retribution for testifying in a court of law," prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memorandum.

Hamilton's federal public defender, Ned Smock, recommended six-month home detention.

"This conduct, though certainly serious, was not the calculated act of a man bent on causing harm to others or subverting the criminal justice system," Smock wrote in his sentencing memorandum.

The case is U.S. v. Hamilton in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

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