US Spent Nuclear Fuel Lead (they/them) arrested for stealing woman’s luggage at MSP

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The state of Minnesota has charged the Department of Energy’s recently-hired head of spent nuclear fuel management with felony theft, court documents show.

According to a criminal complaint filed Oct. 27 in Minnesota’s 4th Judicial District Court, Sam Brinton, who began working in June as DOE’s deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition, is accused of stealing a bag from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport’s baggage claim area in September.

Under Minnesota law, the crime with which Brinton was charged carries a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison, a $10,000 fine or both. A hearing in the case was scheduled for Dec. 19.

A DOE spokesperson declined to comment via email Monday. Brinton did not immediately reply to a request for comment and Brinton’s attorney, Minneapolis-based lawyer Fabian Hoffner, also did not immediately return requests for comment.

The Minnesota-focused online publication Alpha News reported the complaint against Brinton on Monday morning.

Brinton has been on leave from DOE for at least a month, the agency has acknowledged. On Nov. 18, Kim Petry, the acting deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel who has stood in for Brinton, wrote in an email to DOE colleagues that she had been asked to stay on as head of the spent fuel office “for the foreseeable future” by Kathryn Huff, assistant secretary for nuclear energy.

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Brinton “removed the blue bag’s tag and put the bag tag in the handbag they were carrying,” and “left the area at a quick pace,” the complaint said.

The woman who reported the bag missing, and identified the bag as hers in multiple surveillance videos, said the total value of items in the allegedly stolen bag was roughly $2,325, the complaint said.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport Police Department confirmed that Brinton, who identifies as genderfluid and uses ‘they,’ ‘them’ and ‘theirs’ as personal pronouns, had arrived on an American Airlines flight from Washington, and that they had not checked a bag on that flight.

Video surveillance captured at the airport Sep. 18 shows Brinton checking a blue roller bag for a departing flight to Washington, according to the complaint.

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