Feds seek to revoke bail of Giuliani associate Lev Parnas
Federal prosecutors have asked a judge to revoke the bail of a Rudy Giuliani associate who is currently under home detention in Florida while awaiting trial on charges of illegally funneling foreign money into U.S. campaigns.
Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan contended in a court filing on Wednesday that the defendant, Lev Parnas, lied about his finances and should be jailed to prevent him from fleeing.
“Parnas poses an extreme risk of flight, and that risk of flight is only compounded by his continued and troubling misrepresentations to the Pretrial Services office and the Government,” prosecutors wrote. “Parnas’s actions in the two months that he has been released, coupled with his substantial risk of flight, have shown that there is no set of conditions that will reasonably ensure his appearance and compliance with the terms of his release.”
After Parnas was arrested at Dulles Airport outside Washington in October as he prepared to board a flight to Vienna, a federal magistrate judge in Virginia ordered him to post $1 million in cash or property to secure release.
Parnas later got that figure cut to $200,000 after claiming he could not come up with $1 million and had access to only about $450,000 — almost all of it in a bank account under his wife’s name.
However, prosecutors say Parnas received a $1 million transfer from a Russian bank account in the month before his arrest and never disclosed that to court officials or the prosecution. They also say he gave varied and inaccurate accounts of his finances, also omitting mention of $200,000 parked in an escrow account that same month.
Parnas enjoys “access to seemingly limitless sources of foreign funding,” they added, claiming that he spent $70,000 on “private air travel” in September.
The prosecution also accused Parnas and an unnamed defense attorney for him of misleading a pretrial services officer in Florida by saying the judge in New York wanted both sides to work out a deal to get Parnas time out of home detention.
The Ukrainian-born Parnas and a Belarussian-born associate, Igor Fruman, both worked closely with Giuliani on business ventures and Ukraine-related projects, including efforts to drum up information there that could be politically helpful to President Donald Trump.
Giuliani was not charged in the October indictment, which accused Parnas and Fruman of making donations to U.S. campaigns on behalf of a Ukrainian government official and a Russian businessman. Part of the effort described in the indictment was aimed at removing the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch — a goal that Giuliani and the two businessmen were working jointly on.
The 10-page motion to revoke Parnas’ bail reiterates statements a prosecutor made in court last week that new charges in the case could be forthcoming. The filing also points out that when Parnas and Fruman were arrested in October, they had refused to comply with a House request for documents about their work.
“Parnas is also aware that he is under investigation for additional crimes, and that it is likely that he will be charged with additional offenses,” the prosecution team wrote.
Prosecutors also argue that for nearly four years Parnas has been hiding funds because he was ordered to pay about $500,000 in 2016 following a lawsuit by investors who said Parnas ripped them off.
“The Court can and should take into account Parnas’s years-long refusal to comply with a civil judgment against him, and his efforts to hide assets in his wife’s name to ensure that he remains judgment-proof. These actions indicate a lack of respect for the law,” the prosecutors wrote.
A lawyer for Parnas, Joseph Bondy, had no immediate comment on the prosecution move, but said the defense would respond in writing to the court in the coming days. Parnas has asked the court to relax his home detention so he can leave during the daytime.