Lev Parnas, the former aide to Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, was convicted on Friday in a Manhattan federal court for violating U.S. political funding laws during the 2018 midterm elections. Parnas, a U.S. citizen born in Ukraine, was arrested at Washington airport on October 10, 2019, which intensified suspicions surrounding Giuliani, who was accused of pressuring political officials in Kyiv to obtain damaging information about Joe Biden. This case was the basis for the first impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump, which ended with his acquittal by the Senate.
In a separate case, a federal jury on Friday found Lev Parnas and his associate Andrey Kukushkin "unanimously guilty" of multiple violations of election funding laws, according to a statement from federal prosecutor Damian Williams in southern Manhattan. Parnas was convicted on six separate charges. The prosecutor stated, "In order to gain influence among American politicians and candidates, Parnas and Kukushkin illegally brought in foreign money for the 2018 midterm elections with the goal of making substantial profits in the cannabis sector," in which they intended to invest.
The decision on the penalties to be imposed on them will be made later. Lev Parnas, who maintained his innocence and was representing himself freely, was accused of concealing the true source of funds provided in 2018 to several candidates in local and federal elections in the United States. One of these amounts, totaling $325,000, was allocated to a support club for Donald Trump known as "America First Action" and was falsely reported to originate from an energy sector import and export company. According to the prosecution, a Russian businessman is behind other amounts given to Republican candidates in Nevada, violating the ban on foreign campaign financing.
