Indicted Giuliani associate Igor Fruman taps Manafort attorney
Igor Fruman, one of the two associates of Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani facing criminal charges, has retained a lawyer who is also representing former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Fruman, who is set to be arraigned on campaign finance-related charges Wednesday in federal court in New York, is expected to be represented by Todd Blanche, a former federal prosecutor.
Blanche is defending Manafort in a financial-fraud case brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
Reached at his office on Tuesday, Blanche said he is expecting to be on hand to represent Fruman at the arraignment.
“I haven’t filed an appearance in the case yet, but I anticipate doing so before tomorrow’s conference,” said Blanche, a veteran of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
Fruman and another Giuliani associate, Lev Parnas, were indicted Oct. 9 by a New York grand jury and accused of having helped route hundreds of thousands of dollars into the U.S. political system, including to a pro-Trump super PAC. Prosecutors contend that the funds came from abroad and that Fruman and Parnas acted on behalf of a Russian businessman and a Ukrainian government official, both unnamed.
The Ukrainian-born Parnas and the Belarusian-born Fruman, both naturalized U.S. citizens, were arrested Oct. 9 at Dulles International Airport outside Washington as they were preparing to board a flight to Vienna, Austria.
At an initial hearing in Alexandria, Va., the next day, the businessmen were represented by two Washington lawyers, Kevin Downing and Tom Zehnle.
Downing and Zehnle led Manafort’s defense team during his high-profile 2018 criminal trial in Alexandria and during plea negotiations that averted a second trial that was set to follow in Washington.
Washington lawyer John Dowd, who led President Donald Trump’s personal legal team early in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, previously represented Fruman and Parnas in connection with a House Intelligence Committee request for their documents as part of the ongoing impeachment inquiry.
Dowd appears to no longer be involved. It is rare for an attorney to represent two defendants in criminal matters.
Downing and Zehnle did not respond to repeated requests for comment about whether they plan to stay on the case.
Blanche, a partner at the Manhattan-based law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, declined to comment when asked about any connection between his representation of Manafort and that of Fruman. Blanche also declined to say how his role defending Fruman came about.
Fruman was released from an Alexandria jail last week after pledging $1 million in property. Parnas was released on Monday after putting up $200,000 in funds and promising that family members and other associates would come up with $1 million if he failed to show up for court.
Both men are expected to face formal arraignment on Wednesday in Manhattan before District Judge Paul Oetken. Two other men are also charged in the case, but Giuliani is not charged or mentioned.
Manafort, who served as Trump’s campaign chairman for several months in 2016, is serving a 7½-year prison sentence for including filing false tax returns and failing to report overseas accounts as well as conspiring to commit money laundering, violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and tamper with witnesses.
In March, Manafort was charged by a New York grand jury with 16 state crimes, including mortgage fraud and falsifying business records. The move appeared to be a bid to blunt the effect of any pardon or commutation Trump might issue on the federal convictions.
Manafort has pleaded not guilty to the state charges. Blanche has urged a judge to dismiss the case as a violation of a New York law limiting the filing of state charges that duplicate charges already tried in federal court.
