Dalya Attar: Indictment, Dismissed Charges, and Trial Status

Maryland state senator Dalya Attar’s federal indictment, returned by a grand jury in the District of Maryland on October 23, 2025, charges her with eight felony counts tied to an alleged years-long scheme to secretly record a former campaign consultant in an extramarital affair and use the footage to force the consultant out of Attar’s political life. Attar, her brother Joseph “Yossi” Attar, and Baltimore City Police Officer Kalman Finkelstein were arrested on October 30, 2025, when the indictment was unsealed. All three pleaded not guilty. Attar lost the June 2026 Democratic primary for her Baltimore City Senate seat while under indictment, and the case remains pending with no trial date set.¹²

The Eight Charges

The case is United States v. Attar, No. 1:25-cr-00324-SAG, assigned to U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher.²³⁴

What Prosecutors Say Happened

According to the indictment, the conspiracy began in January 2020 and targeted an unnamed woman who had worked as a political consultant on Attar’s 2018 House of Delegates campaign. The goal, prosecutors allege, was to keep her from opposing Attar’s future campaigns or working for her rivals, with the 2022 reelection bid as the immediate motivator.³

The methods described by the government were elaborate. Prosecutors say the defendants placed a tracking device on a vehicle and installed covert recording equipment disguised as smoke detectors inside an apartment, capturing the consultant and a second victim on audio and video during an affair. Joseph Attar then allegedly confronted one of the victims with the footage and threatened to leak it to their families, their children, and to matchmakers within the Orthodox Jewish community if the consultant did not agree to step away from Attar’s political affairs. The government alleges the three coordinated through encrypted WhatsApp messages and deleted them afterward.⁵

Among the evidence cited is a voice message prosecutors say Attar left on April 8, 2022: “I have an election coming up and I really don’t care. I just care about it getting back to [the consultant] and she understands that we’re serious.”⁴

Who Else Was Charged

Joseph “Yossi” Attar, Dalya Attar’s brother, is alleged to have carried out much of the physical surveillance work: installing the hidden cameras, tracking vehicles, and confronting a victim with the recorded footage.³ He pleaded not guilty on November 24, 2025. In April 2026, his attorneys adopted his sister’s motion to dismiss and filed separate motions to suppress cell phone evidence and evidence they said was obtained through coercion.²

Kalman Finkelstein is a Baltimore City police officer who volunteered on Attar’s 2022 campaign. According to the indictment, the political consultant was a friend of the Finkelstein family and regularly used vehicles and an apartment belonging to them, which is how the defendants gained access to place the surveillance equipment.³ Finkelstein’s police powers had already been suspended in 2022, and he had been on administrative duty ever since; after the indictment, the department suspended him without pay. He pleaded not guilty on November 24, 2025, and was released on the condition that he surrender his passport.⁶

How the Defense Is Fighting Back

Attar’s lead attorney, Jeff Ifrah, has cast the case as a family trying to shake off a “prolonged campaign of harassment by a disgruntled former employee,” saying the defendants “simply wanted to be left alone.”⁷

On December 16, 2025, the defense filed a motion to dismiss three of the eight counts: both extortion charges and one Travel Act count. The core argument is that the government failed to allege the defendants sought “money, property, or a thing of transferable economic value,” which the defense contends is a required element under the federal extortion statute and the state laws underlying the Travel Act charge.⁸⁹ The motion relies heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous 2013 decision in Sekhar v. United States, which held that compelling someone to give a professional recommendation was not obtaining “property” under federal extortion law because the interest was not transferable from one person to another. Ifrah argues freedom from harassment is similarly non-transferable and cannot support an extortion charge.¹⁰

The motion does not challenge the conspiracy count or the wiretapping count. The defense has separately argued that the government does not possess the actual video or images allegedly shown to the victim, and that the recording of a meeting with the victim was itself an illegal wiretap.¹⁰

Case Status and Trial Timing

Judge Gallagher has granted a series of consent motions excluding time from the Speedy Trial Act calculation, entered on a roughly monthly basis from November 2025 through at least March 2026.² No trial date has been scheduled. One report indicated the judge delayed trial until after November 2, 2026, the day before the general election.⁷ The motion to dismiss the extortion counts is pending.

In June 2026, Judge Gallagher issued an order barring Attar from referencing confidential evidence from the case in her campaign materials. Attar had sought permission to publicly acknowledge government evidence designated confidential under a protective order; the judge ruled that doing so would violate the order restricting such evidence to use in her legal defense.¹¹

Political Consequences

Attar, a former Baltimore City assistant state’s attorney and House of Delegates member first elected in 2018, was appointed to the state Senate in January 2025 to fill the seat vacated by Jill P. Carter, becoming the first Orthodox Jewish woman to serve in the Maryland Senate.¹²¹³ Senate leadership did not formally discipline her or call for her resignation after the indictment, and she served through the 2026 legislative session.¹⁴

She ran for a full term in the June 2026 Democratic primary against Delegate Malcolm Ruff, the same rival she had narrowly defeated in the 2025 appointment vote. This time Ruff picked up endorsements from Governor Wes Moore and former Senator Carter, and his campaign raised roughly $570,000 to Attar’s roughly $256,000.¹⁴¹⁵ Ruff made the indictment a central issue, saying Attar “should not be representing any of our communities because we can’t allow folks that we put in position of trust and power to have this kind of conduct.”⁷ On June 23, 2026, Ruff won roughly 61% to 39%. Ruff faces no Republican opponent in November. If the trial proceeds after the general election as the reporting suggests, Attar will face it as a private citizen.

1
The Daily Record. DOJ Charges MD State Sen Dalya Attar and Baltimore Cop With Blackmailing Former Aide
2
CourtListener. United States v. Attar
3
Maryland Matters. Attar, Brother and Campaign Volunteer Charged With Reelection Extortion Plot
4
Baltimore Fishbowl. In Baltimore City, Dalya Attar Runs for Re-Election Despite Federal Indictment
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The Washington Post. United States v. Attar Indictment
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CBS News Baltimore. Maryland Senator Dalya Attar Blackmail Conspiracy Finkelstein
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Capital News Service Maryland. In Baltimore City, Attar Runs for Re-Election Despite Federal Indictment
8
Maryland Matters. Attar Attorneys Seek Dismissal of Extortion Charges
9
The Daily Record. Maryland Sen Attar Seeks to Dismiss Extortion Charges
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WMAR2 News. This Is Not Extortion, Says Dalya Attar’s Attorney in Motion to Dismiss Charges
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FOX Baltimore. Maryland Senator Dalya Attar Barred From Using Criminal Case Evidence in Campaign
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Maryland Matters. Attar Prevails Over Ruff in Bid for District 41 Senate Appointment
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FOX Baltimore. Baltimore City State Senator Dalya Attar Arrested, Indicted on Federal Extortion Conspiracy Charges
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Maryland Matters. Attar Ruff Senate Race
15
The Daily Record. Malcolm Ruff Leads Dalya Attar in Baltimore Senate Primary