Lev Parnas, a one-time aide to Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, was found guilty on Friday of violating US campaign finance laws during the 2018 elections.
Ukraine-born American businessman Parnas and his former ally Igor Fruman were accused of soliciting funds from Russian businessman Andrey Muravyev to donate to candidates in states where the group was licensed to operate a cannabis business in 2018. was asking.
Prosecutors said Parnas also hid that he and Fruman, who pleaded guilty in September, were the real sources of donations to a group supporting Republican then-President Trump. Giuliani’s lawyer has said the Parnas case is separate from the investigation into whether lobbying laws were violated by representing Trump.
US prosecutor Giuliani has not been charged with any crimes and has denied wrongdoing in the 1980s before being elected mayor of New York in 1994.
Parnas was found guilty of all six counts of federal election law violations, including helping a foreigner illegally contribute to a US election campaign, contributing in the name of others, and lying to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Included.
Andrey Kukushkin, a Muraviev associate and California resident who was prosecuted along with Parnas, was found guilty on Friday of two counts of campaign finance violations. Kukushkin is also a native of Ukraine.
The trial in US District Court in Manhattan drew attention to the role Parnas and Fruman, a Belarus-born US citizen, played in helping Trump’s personal lawyer Giuliani to investigate Democrat Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign. Biden won the election, denying Trump a second term.
Wearing a blue suit, Parnas looked straight at the jury as soon as he read the verdict. Kukushkin, wearing a gray sweater, shook his head after pleading guilty to the second count.
Parnas said, “I never hide from anyone.” “I have always stood up and tried to speak the truth.”
His lawyer, Joseph Bondi, said he would file a motion to quash the verdict “in the interest of justice”.
“This is clearly a very difficult time for Mr Parnas and his wife and their children,” Bondi said.
US District Judge J. Paul Oetken rejected prosecutors’ requests to detain Parnas and Kukushkin. After the jury left, Otken said, “The defendants have sufficiently established that they do not pose a flight risk.”
Otken set February 16 as the sentencing date for Kukushkin. He did not set a sentencing date for Parnas, who faces another possible trial on separate fraud charges.
‘over his head’
The case provided a glimpse into the inner workings of political fundraising in the United States.
“You saw the wires from Muraviev,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Scotton told the jury during Thursday’s closing arguments. “You saw how that money turned out to be the other way around as it found its way into American elections, where defendants thought they bought influence to further their business.”
Parnas’ defense attorneys countered that Muraviev’s money went toward business investments, not campaign contributions, and that the donation to the pro-Trump group was from a company founded by Parnas and did not break any laws.
In his closing statement, Parnas’ attorney Bondi portrayed his client as a passionate proponent of marijuana legalization who was “well over his head.” He argued that Muraviev’s money funded business operations, not campaign contributions.
The deliberations in the trial began on Friday morning and lasted for about five hours.
Fruman, who lives in Florida, pleaded guilty to soliciting campaign contributions from a foreign national. His sentence is set for January 21.
Parnas and Kukushkin had faced two counts of conspiring to solicit and donate to a foreign national. Parnas was also charged with four other counts, including making false statements to the Federal Election Commission.