Ex-Giuliani associate Igor Fruman arrives at federal court for an arraignment hearing on Oct. 23, 2019 in New York City.
One of the two former Rudy Giuliani associates at the center of former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment proceeding has been released to home confinement. The move occurred a little more than two months into his roughly yearlong sentence.
In January, Igor Fruman received a sentence of one year and a day last September after pleading guilty to soliciting a contribution to a foreign national to advance a cannabis business.
The trial of Fruman’s co-defendant Lev Parnas showed how the duo allegedly agreed to wire $1 million from Russian oligarch Andrey Muraviev, only $115,000 of which wound up in U.S. elections. Prosecutors say that Fruman and Parnas hoped strategically placed donations in certain states would help them obtain marijuana licenses. Fruman admitted to the offenses. Parnas was convicted at trial by a jury, and Muraviev remains at large following his indictment in March.
In a letter filed on Wednesday, federal prosecutors apprised U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken of Fruman’s status.
“The Government has conferred with the Bureau of Prisons, and understands that Mr.
Fruman reported to the Bureau of Prisons for service of his 366-day sentence on March 13, 2022, was transferred to crisis furlough on May 3, 2022, and then transferred to home incarceration beginning May 25, 2022,” their letter states. “The latter two assignments were pursuant to the CARES Act.”
In the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic, former President Trump signed the CARES Act. The law contained provisions to slow down the spread of the virus in U.S. prisons by transferring at-risk inmates to home confinement, and recent guidelines by the attorney general emphasize taking into account an incarcerated person’s age and vulnerability. Fruman is 55 years old.
One of the types of furloughs recognized by the Bureau of Prisons allows incarcerated people to address crises within their immediate families, or another urgent situation.
When they were first indicted in October 2019, Fruman and Parnas were key figures in the scandal in Ukraine that formed the basis for Trump’s first impeachment. Both were implicated in the smear campaign against former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich. Fruman cut two $2,700 checks to Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), signing one under Parnas’s name to duck campaign contribution limits, prosecutors said.
Sessions, a then-House Rules Committee chairman referred to as “Congressman-1” in Fruman’s first indictment, would write a letter seeking Yovanovitch’s ouster after meeting with the pair. Prosecutors never accused him of wrongdoing.
Unlike Parnas, Fruman never cooperated with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in Trump’s impeachment. He was initially represented by Trump-tied lawyer John Dowd before retaining Todd Blanche, who previously represented former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Fruman also ultimately received a lighter sentence than Parnas, who received 20 months behind bars for campaign finance crimes and conspiracy charges in connection with the company Fraud Guarantee. Prosecutors said Parnas defrauded investors in that company out of $2 million.
Giuliani, who received $500,000 for legal services for Fraud Guarantee, was never charged with a crime. Federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York, which Giuliani once led, have been investigating him.
Read the letter below:
(Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
Follow Law&Crime:
