Giuliani associate Lev Parnas is convicted in campaign finance fraud case
Lev Parnas, a South Florida businessman who is an associate of Rudolph Giuliani, was found guilty on Friday of using funds from a foreign investor to try to influence political candidates through campaign donations.
It took the federal jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan less than a day to find that Parnas committed fraud through donations that were given to several state and federal candidates and were bankrolled by a Russian financier. Parnas was also found guilty on counts related to a $325,000 donation in 2018 to a joint fundraising committee that supported thenPresident Donald Trump.
Prosecutors told the jury that the illegal fundraising documented in text messages and other evidence gave Parnas access to elected officials and candidates. They showed photos of Parnas with Trump and Giuliani, who was the president’s personal lawyer, schmoozing at high-end political fundraisers.
Prosecutors also said Parnas lied to the Federal Elections Commission about the source of the hefty 2018 donation, which he said in filings was from his start-up company Global Energy Producers. The company was not functioning as a real business, prosecutors argued. The donation was sourced through a mortgage-refinance loan obtained by Parnas’ business partner, Igor Fruman, the jury found.
Fruman — a South Florida resident whose alleged role in the events was regularly discussed in testimony at the trial — pleaded guilty last month to one count of soliciting foreign campaign contributions. He’s due to be sentenced early next year.
Outside the courtroom after the verdict on Friday, Parnas said, “I’ve never hid from nobody. I’ve always stood to tell the truth.”
While Parnas’ trial did not directly relate to Giuliani or Trump, the guilty verdict provides a legal coda to a precarious moment in Trump’s presidency: his first impeachment trial. Parnas, a Ukrainian native, was recruited to help Giuliani seek damaging information on Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, prior to the 2020 election. Trump was accused of threatening to withhold aid
to Ukraine if officials there did not announce a criminal investigation into the Bidens.
Parnas and Fruman were arrested on the campaignfinance charges in October 2019, not long after news broke of a phone call in which Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to open a Biden investigation. Once a Trump fan, Parnas turned on the president after being arrested, offering documents and assistance to congressional Democrats and apologizing for his role in Giuliani’s scheme.
Parnas is also slated to face a second trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan for charges related to defrauding investors in what prosecutors say was another sham company — Fraud Guarantee.
The venture purported to protect companies from fraud. But prosecutors allege Parnas and another man, David Correia, were stealing from their investors. Correia has pleaded guilty to charges related to his role in that case.
As of now, Parnas will not be sentenced until after that trial.
In the trial that wrapped up this week, prosecutors alleged that Parnas used money from Russian financier Andrey Muraviev to try to curry favor with candidates he believed could help him and Fruman win licenses to operate cannabis businesses.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Cordell Scotten noted that Parnas’ own former assistant, who testified under an immunity agreement with the Justice Department, said Parnas knew the laws he was skirting by concealing the true source of donations to candidates in several states where cannabis had recently been legalized.
“Parnas was told again and again that he couldn’t donate someone else’s money, and he couldn’t donate except from a citizen or a legal resident,” Scotten said.