Ukraine-born businessman gets one year in prison in U.S. campaign finance case
By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) -A Ukraine-born U.S. businessman was sentenced to one particular year and one particular working day in prison on Tuesday right after getting convicted very last 12 months of campaign finance violations together with a previous affiliate of Rudy Giuliani.
The defendant, Andrey Kukushkin, experienced been discovered responsible in October on two felony counts for funneling dollars from Russian tycoon Andrey Muraviev to U.S. political candidates who could aid a cannabis business he was creating with Lev Parnas, the Giuliani affiliate.
Prosecutors experienced sought a sentence of 51 to 63 months, while Kukushkin explained he should be spared prison.
Ahead of remaining sentenced in federal court in Manhattan, Kukushkin experienced proposed being authorized to guide with reduction initiatives in his indigenous Ukraine.
“I can do substantially more if I continue to keep on serving to my spouse and children and helping my community fairly than be locked up in jail,” Kukushkin, wiping away tears, explained to U.S. District Decide Paul Oetken.
Kukushkin’s lawyer Gerald Lefcourt added that his shopper experienced recently taken in his fiancee’s elderly mother, who fled Ukraine.
Oetken agreed that Kukushkin’s loved ones would endure from his imprisonment, but claimed jail time was desired to prevent other individuals from similar crimes.
“Straw donations by international nationals corrupt our method,” Oetken mentioned.
Prosecutors on Monday unsealed prices more than the marketing campaign finance scheme towards Muraviev, who they reported is at big and thought to be in Russia.
Washington has specific wealthy Russian businessmen with doable sanctions, asset seizures and felony rates to force the Kremlin to end its invasion of Ukraine. Russia calls its actions a “particular operation.”
Parnas, also born in Ukraine, was discovered responsible on all 6 counts of marketing campaign finance violations he faced for the duration of the Oct trial, and is awaiting sentencing.
An additional co-conspirator, Belarus-born Igor Fruman, was in January also sentenced to just one yr and one day in prison right after pleading responsible to a marketing campaign finance violation.
Parnas and Fruman helped Giuliani, a onetime personal lawyer to Republican previous President Donald Trump, examine Democrat Joe Biden forward of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Giuliani, a previous New York City mayor, has not been billed with crimes and has denied wrongdoing.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York modifying by Jonathan Oatis)
