S.F. man has ties to Trump scandal
Budding pot magnate indicted with Ukrainians on U.S. campaign finance charges
A San Francisco man indicted along with two Ukrainian associates of President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was also an aspiring cannabis magnate in Livermore.
Even as Andrey Kukushkin allegedly conspired to illegally funnel foreign money into American political campaigns, he was jostling with zoning boards, planning officials and irate neighbors in the TriValley area, seeking permits to turn a 92acre palatial estate into a sprawling pot farm.
Records show that the Bay Area man who became one tentacle in a national scandal was quietly building an intricate network of businesses and LLCs, trying to profit from the state’s burgeoning marijuana economy.
Kukushkin, 46, was arrested at his San Francisco home on Wednesday after being indicted with three others on a federal charge of conspiring to violate the ban on foreign donations and contributions in
connection with state and federal elections. He faces a maximum five years in prison and $250,000 fine.
“The defendants conspired to circumvent the federal laws against foreign influence by engaging in a scheme to funnel foreign money to candidates for federal and state office so that the defendants could buy potential influence with candidates, campaigns, and the candidates’ governments,” U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman wrote in the indictment unsealed this week in the Southern District of New York.
The case has captured national attention as the tangled relations between the United States and Ukraine have come under scrutiny amid an impeachment inquiry into Trump over accusations he attempted to persuade Ukrainian officials to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Two other defendants in the case, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, are associates of Giuliani under investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office and have been named as witnesses in the impeachment inquiry. They were arrested Wednesday evening at Dulles International Airport with oneway tickets on a flight out of the country, officials said.
Parnas and Fruman were charged with two counts of conspiracy, giving false statements to the Federal Elections Commission, and falsifying records. Kukushkin and a fourth defendant, David Correia, were charged with one count of conspiracy after all four men allegedly made political donations with money from an unnamed Russian businessman to further a marijuana business.
Federal Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley granted Kukushkin’s release from custody on a $1 million bond in San Francisco on Friday ahead of a scheduled appearance in a federal courtroom in New York next week.
Kukushkin’s parents and brother appeared in court and agreed to put up $100,000 in cash along with property to satisfy the bond.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Claudia Quiroz argued that Kukushkin was a possible flight risk due to his extensive international travels, passports from the United States and Ukraine, and finances that include multiple companies controlling properties and businesses around California.
Kukushkin is a native of Ukraine and a U.S. citizen who moved to California in 1991 after working at a Swiss bank, his attorney, Alan Dressler, told the judge. Kukushkin’s 13yearold son lives in London.
Kukushkin’s family and Dressler declined to comment after Friday’s hearing.
Public records show that Kukushkin had numerous links to the Bay Area and state’s marijuana economy, sharing control of limited liability companies including Oasis Venture, Legacy Botanical Co. and Venture Rebel Inc.
In 2015, Kukushkin got involved with San Francisco medical cannabis dispensary Med Thrive, which contracted Venture Rebel Inc. to manage its Mission Street location, according to a 2018 lawsuit. Kukushkin sued his coinvestors, accusing them of running the company into the ground, costing him $1 million.
He recently sought to turn a large ranch in Livermore into a cannabis farm, and he was jockeying with various county zoning and utility boards — as well as his reluctant neighbors — to get it approved. The 92acre land, shown in photographs on the Oasis website, includes an opulent, eightbedroom, 12bathroom Spanish Missionstyle mansion and guesthouse with palm trees and a saltwater pool. Tucked off Morgan Territory Road, Cayetano Creek runs through the front of the property.
Kukushkin and his business partner, Chuk Campos, proposed building a 34,213squarefoot greenhouse on the property, containing a 22,000squarefoot cannabis canopy, according to his application with the East Alameda County Board of Zoning Adjustments. Kukushkin also wanted to construct a 6,480squarefoot processing building and 28 parking spaces. The project stalled after neighbors complained to county officials.
Oasis Venture LLC previously applied for a cannabis cultivation permit in 2017. When the Alameda County Community Development Agency denied the application, Campos wrote a letter of appeal, saying Oasis was using cannabis to advance cancer research and that planning officials would change their minds if they visited the property.
“The Oasis Venture is fully committed to working with Alameda County elected officials and staff to demonstrate how cannabis cultivation enhances agriculture in Alameda County,” Campos wrote in the letter. “We are also fully committed to the significant cancer research with cannabis (that) a permit enables.”
Reached by phone Friday afternoon, Campos tried to distance himself from Kukushkin.
“I really can’t comment, Andrey is not a friend of mine,” he said. “I’m in business with him.” Campos said he had to take a call from his lawyer, and hung up.
As he went through the rigmarole of land use and permitting in Alameda County, Kukushkin and three associates were trying to acquire retail marijuana licenses in Nevada and other states, according to federal authorities. They met a Russian businessman, described in the indictment as “Foreign National1,” in Las Vegas in September 2018 to discuss the pot business venture, authorities said.
The defendants later attended a political fundraiser for an unnamed state political candidate in Nevada and took steps to hide their financier’s identity because of his “Russian roots and current political paranoia about it,” according to the indictment.
The four men then created a “multistate license strategy” by donating $1 million of the Russian businessman’s cash to political candidates in an attempt to gain influence and “facilitate acquisitions of retail marijuana licenses,” the indictment alleges.
The venture fell through after the men discovered they didn’t apply for a recreational marijuana license in time for Nevada’s September 2018 deadline.