A fashion designer from Houston claimed that disgraced former Department of Energy official Sam Brinton wore the custom-made clothes that she had reported missing from a Washington DC airport in 2018.
Asya Khamsin, a Tanzanian fashion designer who has made her own clothing for years, shared the shocking connection in a Monday tweet that has since gone viral.
Khamsi said she found photos of Brinton wearing her custom clothing that she had packed in the missing bag after learning that Brinton had been charged with stealing multiple pieces of luggage from two US airports.
The fashion designer tweeted photos showing some of the clothes she lost and then Brinton — who identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns — wearing the same outfits.
“I saw the images. Those were my custom designs, which were lost in that bag in 2018,” she told Fox News. “He wore my clothes, which was stolen.”
Khamsin’s bag vanished from the Ronald Reagan Washington Airport on March 9, 2018, after she flew into the capital for an event where she was to put her clothes on display, she told Fox. However, after the bag disappeared she was unable to participate.
Her husband filed reports with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police Department and filed a claim with Delta Airlines, which is the airline Khamsin used to fly from Houston to DC. The bag was never recovered.
Communications between Delta and Khimson shared with Fox News show the fashion designer pleading with the airline for her bag back, saying it was full of expensive clothes, shoes, jewelry and other personal items.
After seeing photos of Brinton wearing what she believes are her clothes on the news, she filed a report with the Houston Police Department on Dec. 16. In late January, she said she was contacted by the FBI field office in Minneapolis, Minnesota, according to Khamsin’s husband.
“Houston police, I guess, they [sent] the case to the FBI in Minnesota,” Khamsin’s husband told Fox. “He called to say, ‘I’m [with] the FBI, I’m working on this case.’ Then my wife gave him the information and we didn’t hear anything. We don’t know whether the case is on. We don’t know whether the case is cold.”
The FBI would not confirm that it is investigating, per the agency’s policy. As of Wednesday night, Brinton had not been charged with any crime related to Khamsin’s clothes.
Brinton, 35, served as the Biden administration’s deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition at the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy before they were canned after they were charged with stealing a woman’s suitcase from a Minneapolis airport in September and another woman’s bag from a Las Vegas airport in July.
In both the Minnesota and Nevada cases, Brinton had traveled on flights from Washington, DC., before allegedly swiping the bags from the airports’ baggage carousels, according to criminal complaints obtained by Fox News.
Brinton was released without bail and ordered not to contact any of the victims last week after a court appearance in Minnesota.
They appeared in Las Vegas court in December and were released after posting a $15,000 bond. The judge, in that case, told the former nuclear waste official to “stay out of trouble.”
Brinton faces up to five years in prison for the Minnesota theft and up to 10 years jail time for the Las Vegas heist.
Attempts to contact Brinton and his attorney in Las Vegas were unsuccessful. The Post also reached out to Khamsin and Delta Airlines for comment.
Additional reporting by David Propper and Marjorie Hernandez
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