Lawyer who lied to Mueller sentenced
Van der Zwaan must serve 30 days in jail, pay a $20,000 fine
A Dutch lawyer who lied about his contacts with a top Trump campaign official and a reputed Russian spy was ordered Tuesday to serve 30 days in prison, becoming the first person sentenced in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s sprawling investigation.
Alex van der Zwaan, 33, a former associate at U.S.-based Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and the son-in-law of Russian oligarch German Khan, was also ordered to pay a $20,000 fine.
Van der Zwaan faced up to six months in prison after pleading guilty on Feb. 20 to lying in an interview with prosecutors and FBI agents. He admitted to misleading them about his discussions with Rick Gates, Trump’s former deputy campaign chairman, and about his work with a man who prosecutors say was a Russian military intelligence officer.
“He was essentially caught red-handed,” U.S.
District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said in federal court in Washington. She said that van der Zwaan’s lies were especially troubling because Mueller’s investigation involves questions of national security and “potential foreign interference in the democratic process that is fundamental to our freedoms.”
The judge said she would recommend to U.S. authorities that van der Zwaan be confined at the federal prison in Allenwood, Pa., followed by two months of supervised release.
Van der Zwaan, who asked Jackson to spare him time behind bars, was the fifth person to plead guilty in Mueller’s investigation
of whether Russia colluded with anyone in the successful campaign of President Donald Trump. Van der Zwaan, who is not cooperating, claims he lied to protect his job and not anyone else.
“What I did was wrong,” van der Zwaan said. “I apologize to the court for my conduct. I apologize to my wife and family.”
Although Mueller’s office didn’t recommend a particular sentence, prosecutor Andrew Weissmann urged the judge to send a message to “reflect the gravity of the offense.” Van der Zwaan, he said, had a “history of conduct that’s either criminal or shows a real lack of morality.”
“We count on people to tell us the truth,” Weissmann said. “People need to know that there are consequences to withholding documents and consequences to lying to the government.”
Mueller informed Trump’s attorneys last month that he is continuing to investigate the president but does not consider him a criminal target at this point, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
In private negotiations in early March about a possible presidential interview, Mueller described Trump as a subject of his investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Prosecutors view someone as a subject when that person has engaged in conduct that is under investigation but there is not sufficient evidence to bring charges.
Lawyers for van der Zwaan, who lives in London, suggested he’d been punished enough by having to live in limbo in the U.S. in recent months. “He’s going to go home without a profession or a career,” said defense attorney William Schwartz. But the judge rejected Schwartz’s request that he only pay a fine and return to London.