Sam Brinton, the "genderfluid" amateur baggage thief who once served as President Joe Biden's top nuclear waste guru, on Tuesday narrowly avoided jail time for stealing a woman's suitcase from a Las Vegas airport.
Brinton, a spanking fetishist who uses they/them pronouns, was caught on camera stealing the woman's luggage from the Harry Reid International Airport in July 2022, just weeks after becoming the Department of Energy's deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition. For pleading no contest to the crime, Brinton's charge was downgraded to a misdemeanor. The kleptomaniac received a 180-day suspended jail sentence and was ordered to pay $3,670.74 in restitution to the victim.
But Brinton's legal troubles are far from over. The Las Vegas heist was just the start of the known extent of the former nuclear waste official's cross-country crime spree. Brinton faces another felony charge for stealing a woman's suitcase with contents worth $2,325 from the Minneapolis-Saint Paul airport in September 2022. Brinton's next hearing in that case is scheduled to take place on Monday morning.
Brinton hosted regular "kink parties" in a Washington, D.C., "dungeon" and taught hands-on spanking at leather kink conferences during his short tenure overseeing the federal government's disposal of highly radioactive nuclear waste.
"The red flags regarding Brinton were overwhelming and obvious to all who cared to see them," LGBTQ Nation reported in December as news of his various airport capers came to light. "Unfortunately, some of America's top LGBTQ+ activists and organizations were willfully blind to Brinton's shortcomings."
The Department of Energy unceremoniously dismissed Brinton in December.
Brinton's penchant for stealing women's luggage may have started long before he joined the Biden administration in June 2022. Houston fashion designer Asya Khamsin said in February that she believes Brinton is responsible for stealing her luggage from a Washington, D.C., airport in 2018.
Khamsin posted pictures on Twitter showing Brinton wearing the same custom outfit and jewelry that she had in her lost bag, which she said was never recovered.
My name is Asyakhamsin tanzanian fashion designer based in houston Texas USA I lost my bag 2018 in DCA recently I heard the news on @FoxNews about @sambrinton luggage issue surprisingly I found his images wore my custom made outfitswhich was in the lost bag on 2018 pic.twitter.com/lJwLHtMJlz
— asyakhamsin (@asyakhamsin1) February 20, 2023
Brinton has not been charged in connection to Khamsin's allegations.