Federal prosecutors file new charges against associate of Trump backer Rudy Giuliani

US federal prosecutors have said they filed new charges against Lev Parnas, a one-time associate of President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who was already facing charges over campaign financing.

The prosecutors said Thursday they had charged Parnas and an associate, David Correia, with plotting to defraud investors in an insurance company they ran.

Prosecutors said a superseding indictment also includes additional campaign finance law violations.

Parnas and Correia were once charged in an indictment the prosecutor’s office issued in 2019.

Now, according to Audrey Strauss, acting chief federal prosecutor in Manhattan, they were both charged in a superseding indictment with conspiring to commit wire fraud relating to their efforts to raise funds for a business they called “Fraud Guarantee.”

The two set up Fraud Guarantee in late 2012, and that, “ironically,” they had pitched the company to potential investors as an entity that would “insure investors against corporate fraud,” prosecutors said.

“Lev Parnas and David Correia conspired in a fraud using a company called ‘Fraud Guarantee’ that purported to insure investors against corporate fraud while in fact, as alleged, they misled investors as to what would be done with their money. ‘Fraud Guarantee’ takes on a different meaning in light of today’s allegations that the company was a vehicle for committing fraud, not insuring against it,” Strauss said in a statement.

The new indictment also leveled charges at Parnas, Correia and Igor Fruman, an associate of Parnas and Giuliani, for soliciting a foreign national to make donations and contributions. It also charged Parnas, Fruman and a fourth man, Andrey Kukushkin, with helping and abetting a foreign national to contribute to US federal and state elections.

Parnas, a US citizen who emigrated from Ukraine, was indicted last year on charges of conspiracy, making false statements and falsification of records.

Prosecutors previously alleged Parnas had made campaign donations to Republican causes after receiving millions of dollars originating from Russia.

He was also involved in an alleged Ukraine pressure campaign that underlay Trump's impeachment trial.

Democrats release new documents on Trump impeachment trial

US Democrats unveiled new evidence Tuesday that they plan to send to the Senate as part of their case to remove President Trump from office.

House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry against Trump in September last year after an unknown whistle-blower alleged the Republican president pressured his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, who had served as a director for Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

Biden is a leading candidate in the Democratic presidential primary race and could emerge as Trump's major challenger in the November 2020 elections.

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