Joe.My.God. LGBT News
Via press release from the Justice Department:
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Michael J. Driscoll, the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced the unsealing of an indictment against ANDREY MURAVIEV, a/k/a “Andrey Muravyov,” a Russian citizen, charging him with making illegal political contributions as a foreign national, and conspiring to make illegal political contributions as a foreign national in the names of straw donors.
Muraviev is charged with conspiring with Lev Parnas, Andrey Kukushkin, and Igor Fruman, and others, who were convicted at trial or have pleaded guilty to these crimes. In the spring of 2018, MURAVIEV, Kukushkin, Fruman, and Parnas decided to launch a business aimed at acquiring retail cannabis and marijuana licenses in the United States.
As part of that plan, MURAVIEV agreed to wire $1 million, through a series of bank accounts, to Fruman and Parnas to fund hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions they had made or promised to make before the elections in November 2018.
The purpose of the donations was to curry favor with candidates that might be able to help MURAVIEV and his co-conspirators obtain cannabis and marijuana licenses. MURAVIEV’s money was used to reimburse and fund federal and state political donations in Florida, Nevada, and Texas, and MURAVIEV also agreed that the funds would pay for donations to politicians in New York and New Jersey.
MURAVIEV traveled to Nevada as part of these efforts, and received regular updates from Kukushkin about the co-conspirators’ progress politically.
To obscure the fact that MURAVIEV was the true donor of the money, the funds were sent to a business bank account controlled by FRUMAN’s brother, and then the donations were made in FRUMAN’s and PARNAS’s names.
MURAVIEV, 47, of Russia, is charged with (1) conspiring to make contributions and donations by a foreign national and in the name of another person, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison; and (2) making contributions by a foreign national, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Just IN: Feds have charge Russian Oligarch With Making Illegal Political Contributions. Andrey Muraviev is charged with conspiring with Rudy Giuliani associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, the unsealing of the indictment in coming soon. MURAVIEV is believed to be in Russia
— Marta Dhanis (@MartaDhanis) March 14, 2022