His former partner in the venture has pleaded guilty, but Lev Parnas has chosen to go the opposite side when charged with having cheated his investors in a fraud-insurance company. He is a Ukraine-born businessman who is known to have helped Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani to gather information about Joe Biden.
When called at the hearing on Monday, another former associate of Giuliani, the Belarus-born Igor Fruman too chose to go the Ukraine-born businessman’s way by pleading not guilty of having violated campaign finance laws and other charges in a modified indictment. The hearing happened before U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken in Manhattan. The Belarus-born Igor Fruman, with Lev Parnas, decided to go the Ukraine-born businessman’s way.
Following the proceedings, we learn how the prosecutors, in this case, have accused Parnas with his partner of deluding their investors of more than $2 million. This accusation is regarding their Florida based start-up that gave fraud guarantees to withdraw money only for personal uses, including even political donations.
Seeing the current situations of the pandemic, Oetken drew attention to the dozens and dozens of cases that were created as a backlog in the Manhattan court. And since the trials have begun the chief judge has imposed strict restrictions on every judge by saying them “not to do anything in the courthouse unless we really, really have to.”
Oetken has proposed a new trial date between June and October 2021.
In the complete case, it is Parnas and Fruman who have drawn a lot of attention because of their work with Giuliani especially in the matters related to Ukraine, including the efforts for helping former New York City mayor to dig up damaging information about Biden and his son.
An interesting shift came in the case when David Corriea, Parnas’ partner in Fraud Guarantee pleaded guilty in front of the judge on October 29th for committing wire fraud conspiracy which involved cheating his investors and making wrong statements to the Federal Election Commission.
Apart from Parnas and Fruman, Andrey Kukushkin is also charged for illegally using donations, but he too has pleaded guilty on the matters of using the funds from a Russian businessman to help obtain licenses for a legal, recreational marijuana business.