Prosecutors: Giuliani associate Lev Parnas hid $1 million payment from Russia
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Federal prosecutors on Wednesday said in a court filing that Rudy Giuliani's associate Lev Parnas has misrepresented his income and failed to disclose that he received $1 million from Russia in September.
Parnas, they said, poses "an extreme risk of flight" that is "only compounded by his continued and troubling misrepresentations." Parnas was arrested in October and charged with campaign finance violations, and prosecutors have asked the judge to revoke his bail and send him to jail.
Prosecutors said the $1 million was put into a bank account belonging to his wife, Svetlana Parnas, and this seemed "to be an attempt to ensure that any assets were held in Svetlana's, rather than Lev's, name."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Parnas and another indicted Giuliani associate, Igor Fruman, went to Ukraine to try to dig up dirt on Democratic presidential candidates. They have also been accused of working on behalf of Ukrainian government officials to get Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine known for her anti-corruption efforts, removed from her post. Beyond that, not much is known about who the pair worked for and what they did, Bloomberg notes, and this court filing rises new questions about their clients.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
