Mr. Fruman was at the center of a campaign to damage then-President Donald J. Trump’s rivals, but was brought down by campaign finance charges.
Well before the 2020 presidential election, when he was an associate of Rudolph W. Giuliani, Igor Fruman was on the front lines of a shadowy diplomacy campaign to advance then-President Donald J. Trump’s interests and damage his political adversaries.
But an unrelated and much more mundane matter brought down Mr. Fruman: federal campaign-finance laws.
Last year, Mr. Fruman pleaded guilty to soliciting foreign campaign contributions by asking a Russian tycoon for $1 million for American political candidates. And on Friday a judge in Federal District Court in Manhattan fined Mr. Fruman $10,000 and sentenced him to one year and one day in prison, in addition to the more than two years Mr. Fruman has spent in home confinement since his arrest.
Addressing Judge J. Paul Oetken, Mr. Fruman said he had spent the time since his arrest reflecting on his actions.
“It’s a shame that will live with me forever,” he said. “But I can assure you, my family, and the government that I will never appear before yourself or another courtroom again.”
The sentencing closed a chapter for Mr. Fruman, who was arrested in 2019 at Dulles International Airport, along with a business partner, Lev Parnas, as they were about to leave the country.
The two Soviet-born businessmen had worked their way into Republican circles in 2018, donating money and posing for selfies with candidates. They had dinner with Mr. Trump at his hotel in Washington, D.C., and became friendly with Mr. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.
Eventually, Mr. Fruman and Mr. Parnas were connected to investigations and an impeachment, assisting Mr. Giuliani as he attempted to undermine Joseph R. Biden Jr., who ended up defeating Mr. Trump in 2020.
Mr. Giuliani credited Mr. Fruman and Mr. Parnas with arranging a meeting with Viktor Shokin, Ukraine’s former top prosecutor and a key figure in Republican attacks on Mr. Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
And Mr. Fruman’s connections helped lead to a meeting between Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Shokin’s successor, Yuriy Lutsenko, according to two people with knowledge of the arrangements. Mr. Lutsenko, who was helping Mr. Giuliani unearth damaging information about the Bidens, also wanted Marie L. Yovanovitch, the American ambassador to Ukraine, to be removed from her post. She was recalled in 2019.
Efforts to oust Ms. Yovanovitch became a focus of Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial and led to a federal criminal investigation into whether Mr. Giuliani broke lobbying laws, according to people with knowledge of the matter. He has denied wrongdoing.
But before serving as foot soldiers in Mr. Giuliani’s campaign, Mr. Fruman and Mr. Parnas were entrepreneurs who decided to create a company that would import natural gas to Ukraine.
Prosecutors said they wanted to bolster the company’s profile and began donating to Republican candidates and groups. Soon Mr. Fruman and Mr. Parnas were fixtures at rallies and donor gatherings in places like Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s Florida club. They were a memorable pair. Mr. Fruman, who was born in Belarus, spoke a mix of Russian and choppy English. The Ukrainian-born Mr. Parnas exuded sincerity.
A donation of $325,000 to a pro-Trump super PAC, America First Action, was reported as coming from the company formed by Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman, called Global Energy Producers. That broke campaign finance law, prosecutors said, because the money did not come from the company but from a loan Mr. Fruman took out.
Mr. Fruman and Mr. Parnas were also accused of soliciting the Russian tycoon Andrey Muraviev to send one million dollars to them so they could make campaign donations. The goal, prosecutors said, was to influence candidates who would help a fledgling cannabis business the three had discussed.
Communications obtained by prosecutors show that Mr. Fruman repeatedly pressed for that money, providing a bank account and routing number for a company controlled by his brother. Records assembled by prosecutors show that two companies owned by Mr. Muraviev wired $500,000 apiece to the company controlled by Mr. Fruman’s brother.
Mr. Fruman also sent exuberant messages to Mr. Muraviev and others, at one point including a picture of himself with Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida who was then a candidate for the office, and writing: “Today Florida becomes ours forever!!!!” A week later Mr. Fruman wrote: “Everything is great!! We are taking over the country!!!!”
According to prosecutors, more than $150,000 of Mr. Muraviev’s money went to Republican candidates in the 2018 election cycle, including Adam Laxalt, who was running for governor of Nevada and later supported an effort to overturn Mr. Trump’s loss there.
Mr. Laxalt, who did not become governor, said he was suspicious of the donation and sent a check in that amount to the U.S. Treasury.
After Mr. Fruman and Mr. Parnas were arrested in 2019, Mr. Trump told reporters he did not know the two men.
Aggrieved, Mr. Parnas broke publicly with Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani, turning over material to House impeachment investigators. In October a jury in Manhattan convicted Mr. Parnas of several campaign finance charges including conspiracy to make contributions by a foreign national and falsifying records.
A month before that trial began, Mr. Fruman pleaded guilty to a single count of soliciting a contribution by a foreign national.
In a memorandum to the court, Mr. Fruman’s lawyers asked for lenience, arguing that their client should be sentenced to time served instead of prison.
Because of the notoriety accompanying his offense, Mr. Fruman’s business had faltered, they wrote, adding that he had resorted to spending savings and selling assets and could ill-afford the fine of $15,000 to $150,000 that prosecutors said federal guidelines called for.
The lawyers wrote that Mr. Fruman had no previous criminal record and would never again appear in court “in a criminal setting.” They also said that the financial hardship Mr. Fruman experienced, “irreparable reputational damage,” and the 27 months he has spent confined to his home since shortly after his arrest “serve as adequate deterrence.”
“Mr. Fruman is a good, decent, and honorable man who puts his faith, family and country first,” his lawyers told the court, adding, “This is not a case where Mr. Fruman embarked on an effort to influence the outcome of American elections using foreign money.”
Prosecutors countered that Mr. Fruman’s submission exhibited “a blatant contempt for the law,” writing: “He views this case as an inconvenience to evade, and not an opportunity for reformation.”
Mr. Fruman, the prosecutors said, had been “trying to corrupt U.S. elections to advance his own financial interests.”
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
