A federal judge in Washington D.C. sentenced Russian national Maria Butina on Friday to 18 months in prison, but credited her with nine months time served. That means the defendant has to spend nine more months behind bars.
Maria Butina Sentencing —
18 MONTHS PRISON – will be 9 months with time served.@WUSA9 #breaking pic.twitter.com/wU1gv0rVuD
— Mike Valerio (@MikevWUSA) April 26, 2019
Butina pleaded guilty in December to conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government, and she agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. She admittedly traveled to the United States so she could make connections with members of the Republican Party, and the National Rifle Association. Her handler was former politician Alexander Torshin, prosecutors said. They wanted to influence American politics on behalf of the Russian government, and do it in a way that could possibly hurt U.S. interests, authorities said.
Butina lawyer Alfred Carry told Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday that his client did not work for the Russian government.
Carry: “Maria is not a spy. She’s not intelligence. She’s never been employed by the Russian government. She knows of no secret codes, safe houses … She has never engaged in covert activity and she has never lied to our government.”
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) April 26, 2019
Carry said Butina’s relationship with Aleksandr Torshin (Russian Central Bank official that she was in regular comms with) was a mix of personal (i.e. buying his grandchildren clothes, it was not romantic) and relaying her experiences interacting with influential Americans
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) April 26, 2019
Butina said in court that she would’ve registered as a foreign agent if she knew she had to. Chutkan didn’t accept this framing of events.
Chutkan is up (we may go right to sentencing without a break). She says she agrees with the govt that Butina wasn’t just a student and this wasn’t just a registration offense — Butina was sending info to Russia at a time when Russia was trying to interfere with the US election
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) April 26, 2019
The road here has been pretty messy. The case caught attention in part because of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, but also because of some of the salacious allegations against Butina.
Prosecutors, however, walked back their claim that she offered sex in exchange for political access. Her attorney Robert Driscoll called out the government last year for burying this on “page 19 of a 22-page brief filed near midnight.”
“Whatever the reason, it is nothing short of cowardice to make false proffers to much fanfare only to deny them later in a mere sentence or footnote,” he wrote.
Butina’s American boyfriend, Republican operative Paul Erickson, was implicated after prosecutors suggested she started her relationship with him to gain access to political figures. He wasn’t charged in this case, but is facing a separate one in a South Dakota federal court for financial crimes. Erickson pleaded not guilty.
[Image via STR/AFP/Getty Image]
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