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Giuliani associate sentenced to a year and day for election finance fraud

“It is true that this wasn’t ‘The Manchurian Candidate,’” a federal judge quipped as he ordered prison for a would-be marijuana businessman who funneled Russian money into U.S. elections.

MANHATTAN (CN) — A Soviet-born crony of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani who copped a plea last year in connection to an illegal campaign-contribution scheme was sentenced Friday to 12 months and one day behind bars.

When the case erupted in fall 2019, reports had emerged only days earlier about efforts by Giuliani, at the time a personal attorney to then-President Donald Trump, to steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by allies, including Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, while simultaneously working to dig up dirt on Joe Biden before the Democrat went on to victory in the 2020 election.

The indictment unveiled against Fruman, Parnas and Andrey Kukushkin in October 2019 accused them of illegally funneling political donations through a limited liability company and employing straw donors to build support for their legal cannabis enterprise.

Fruman pleaded guilty last September to a single count of solicitation of a contribution by foreign national. He faced a maximum punishment of up to five years in prison, with a guidelines maximum at 46 months incarceration, but the defense asked that Fruman instead be sentenced to time served and a reasonable term of supervised release.

At a speedy half-hour hearing, held in-person Friday afternoon at the Thurgood Marshall federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken ordered a term of 12 months and one day in prison, making the 55-year-old Fruman eligible for the good-time credit that could potentially shave off 54 days for a sentence actually under one year.

“Mr. Fruman solicited money from a foreign national to be donated to U.S. political campaigns,” the Obama-appointed judge said at Friday’s hearing. “That is something that is specifically prohibited and made criminal by federal law, and the reason for that prohibition is clear and fundamental: to ensure the integrity of democratic elections in our county, foreign influence in the form of actual contributions is not allowed.”

“That means foreign nationals, foreign government, foreign companies, and foreign individuals cannot donate money, whether smell amounts or large amounts in our elections,” he added.

“It is true that this wasn’t ‘The Manchurian Candidate’,” Judge Oetken quipped. “This wasn’t someone from overseas donating to a particulate candidate, putting a million dollars in a particular candidate’s coffers to control them by a foreign national, rather it was more short-term business purposes. … But at the end of the day, the prohibition is still there for reasons that are important to our democracy.”

In sentencing filings, federal prosecutors said a three- to four-year prison sentence would be appropriate.

Represented by Manhattan-based attorney Todd Blanche, who previously won the dismissal of criminal charges against former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort, Fruman asked for no imprisonment at all, citing a largely law-abiding life and his generosity to his family and community.

In a sentencing filing, Fruman’s lawyers said the sentencing guidelines “overstates the nature and circumstances” of the $1 million of foreign money involved in the charged crime.

 “While a portion of the loan was used to pay for political venues, the majority of the loan money went toward paying off credit card debt incurred by Mr. Fruman and his business partners in the course of starting the cannabis venture,” his lawyers wrote.

Blanche said in court Friday that Fruman prefers to serve out his sentence at Otisville, the medium-security state prison located in Orange County, New York, because of his religious affiliations.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos, who previously landed a three-year sentence for Trump’s ex-fixer Michael Cohen, was the lead prosecutor on the case.

Judge Oetken noted last year that Fruman’s guilty plea was not part of a cooperation agreement. It was followed one month later by the conviction on all counts of his two remaining co-defendants.

Fruman and Parnas were arrested together on Oct. 9, 2019, at Washington’s Dulles Airport, where the men held one-way tickets to Vienna, Austria. Prosecutors said the men created a limited liability corporation called Global Energy Producers to conceal their funding and capital from creditors and other third parties, then made large political contributions in that entity's name.

The government’s six-count superseding indictment accused Parnas, 49, and Kukushikin, 48, of conspiring to receive $1 million of foreign campaign contributions from wealthy Russian businessman Andrey Muraviev as part of their joint effort to expand his legal marijuana businesses in the United States.

Defense attorneys had previously sought dismissal of Fruman, Parnas and Kukushkin's superseding indictments for what they called "a gross violation of the defendants’ attorney-client privilege,” arising from an email chain with attorneys and advisers related to their joint cannabis business venture. 

Amid those talks, federal investigators executed a search warrant last April of Giuliani’s Manhattan apartment and office, seizing electronic devices in a predawn raid that coincided with the search warrant executed in the Washington area against Victoria Toensing, another Giuliani ally and onetime Trump attorney.

The 77-year-old former New York City mayor has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime.

A fourth co-defendant linked to Parnas, David Correia, was sentenced in February to a year and a day in prison on separate counts for his involvement in a $2 million investor fraud scheme and lying to the government.

Parnas still faces a separate trial in the Southern District of New York on additional fraud charges that were severed from the campaign-finance indictment, which allege he and Florida businessman David Correa conspired to mislead potential investors to invest in Fraud Guarantee, the same company Parnas used to hire Giuliani in a relationship that has drawn scrutiny from federal prosecutors.

The conspiracy count arising from the alleged Fraud Guarantee scheme carries a maximum 20-year sentence and added forfeiture allegations to the superseding indictment.

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Categories / Criminal, Government, National, Politics

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