Kenneth Kurson (born 1968)[1][2] is an American political consultant, writer, journalist, and former musician,[citation needed] who was editor-in-chief of The New York Observer between 2013 and 2017.
In February 2022, Kurson pleaded guilty to state misdemeanor criminal charges of attempted eavesdropping and computer trespass related to his divorce.
"[2] He graduated from Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook, Illinois, in 1986,[4] and is the younger brother of bestselling author Robert Kurson.
In 1995, he began an irreverent eight-page publication on financial topics, The Kenny Quarterly, while working as an editor at United Media.
[2] A New York Times profile in 2000 said that Kurson "has made personal finance palatable for people who might otherwise believe that it belongs on the shelf with Geritol and Dentu-Creme.
Kurson served as chief operating officer (COO) during Rudy Giuliani's unsuccessful 2008 campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
[12] Kurson hired by the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee and put in charge of the Mid-Atlantic Region – New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland.
[citation needed] After the campaign, Kurson worked at Jamestown Associates, a Republican political consulting firm based in New Jersey.
[23] In March 2018, journalist Deborah Copaken wrote an article in The Atlantic in which she claimed that Kurson withdrew a job offer that had been made to her to write for the New York Observer after not responding favorably to sexual advances from him.
[30] In August 2021, Kurson was charged in a New York state court with hacking into his wife's computer between September 2015 and March 2016 as their marriage fell apart and they divorced.
[32] In announcing the charges, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the district attorney from Manhattan, said, "We will not accept presidential pardons as get-out-of-jail-free cards for the well-connected in New York.
Under the terms of the deal, he was required to complete 100 hours of community service, and if not arrested for another crime, in one year he will withdraw those pleas, and plead to the lesser offense of second degree harassment.