Russian confirmed as source of funds in alleged Parnas, Fruman ‘straw donor’ scheme
Last October, federal prosecutors brought campaign finance charges against two associates of Rudy Giuliani, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who had worked with him to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine to benefit President Donald Trump.
Those Ukraine efforts contributed to the impeachment charges brought against President Trump in January and put Parnas and Fruman’s messy business history on display.
The two men were accused of using money provided by a then-unnamed Russian businessman for political donations to help their efforts to obtain marijuana licenses. They are scheduled to go to trial next year, along with two co-conspirators.
On a pretrial call Thursday, the Russian businessman was identified as Andrei Muraviev by a lawyer for one of Parnas and Fruman’s two alleged co-conspirators, Andrey Kukushkin.
McClatchy was the first to report Muraviev as the likely foreign national last October, days after the charges against Parnas, Fruman and their alleged co-conspirators were unveiled on Oct. 10, 2019. And the Sacramento Bee reported soon after that Kukushkin and Muraviev were partners in multiple Sacramento cannabis businesses with local pot king Garib Karapetyan.
Kukushkin’s lawyer, Gerald Lefcourt, added Thursday that federal prosecutors have subpoenaed Muraviev’s e-mails.
Federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment in the case on Sept. 17, 2020, adding fraud charges against a business operated by Parnas and his partner David Correia called Fraud Guarantee.
The new indictment also contained more detail about the alleged foreign straw donation scheme involving Muraviev.
He allegedly provided $1 million in September and October 2018 that was to be used for efforts to obtain marijuana licenses in Nevada, California, New York and New Jersey, including political donations that they believed would help them obtain the licenses. Federal campaign finance law prohibits donations from foreign nationals and straw donations made in someone else’s name.
The money provided by Muraviev was intended to pay for both future political donations and reimburse Parnas and Fruman for political donations they had already made. The two ramped up their political giving in 2018, including a $325,000 check to America First Action, a political action committee supporting Donald Trump, and $50,000 to a committee supporting Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis.
Both donations were given in the name of Parnas and Fruman’s newly created natural gas company Global Energy Producers. Parnas also hosted two fundraisers for DeSantis who narrowly won election in 2018 against Democrat Andrew Gillum.
The day after the 2018 election, Muraviev sent congratulations to Parnas, Fruman and Kukushkin “on victory.” Kukushkin added congratulations on “victory in Florida” and asked, “[w]hen can we get a license and look for the stores.”
The group was unsuccessful in obtaining marijuana licenses in Florida and Nevada. But as McClatchy has previously reported, Muraviev has a financial stake in at least one and possibly several California businesses with active cannabis licenses.
In the call Thursday, the judge overseeing the case against Parnas, Fruman and their two alleged co-conspirators, U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken, pushed back the trial one month from Feb. 1, 2021, to March 1, 2021, in response to concerns presented from defense lawyers that they had not had enough time to review the government’s evidence in the case.
Federal prosecutors indicated that they have so far sought 22 search warrants in the case and that they requested the defendants obtain a terabyte hard drive for the new evidence they are planning to turn over for review. Oetken also said that under new COVID-19 restrictions the Southern District of New York, where the case will be heard, does not have a big enough courtroom to accommodate a trial with four defendants.
This story was originally published October 8, 2020 at 2:05 PM with the headline "Russian confirmed as source of funds in alleged Parnas, Fruman ‘straw donor’ scheme."
