Russian Known for Trump Tower Meeting Faces Charges in U.S.

(Bloomberg) -- Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer who met with Trump campaign officials in June 2016, was accused by prosecutors in New York of obstructing an investigation into money laundering by one of her clients.

Veselnitskaya submitted an intentionally misleading declaration in a U.S. lawsuit involving the investment firm Prevezon Holdings Ltd., according to prosecutors.

She presented the results of a supposed independent investigation by the Russian government that exonerated her clients. Veselnitskaya said she had "gone to great lengths" to get a copy of the report, and had to get a court order in Russia to obtain it. In fact, the U.S. said, she had secretly worked with the Russian prosecutors to draft the findings.

“This investigation brought to light how Veselnitskaya secretly schemed with a senior Russian prosecutor to provide false information to U.S. law enforcement in an attempt to influence the legal proceedings,” said Angel Melendez, special agent in charge of the New York office of Homeland Security Investigations.

Veselnitskaya isn’t expected to be in court Tuesday and is believed to be in Russia, said James Margolin, a spokesman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office. She wasn’t immediately available for comment.

The case signals that New York federal prosecutors may still be investigating money laundering by Russian oligarchs. It also shows they’re reading emails between Veselnitskaya and Russian prosecutors.

Mueller Probe

That could help Special Counsel Robert Mueller as he unravels the role of Veselnitskaya and others in the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower set up on the pretext of providing political dirt about President Donald Trump’s political opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton. The meeting was attended by Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman at the time.

Trump initially described the meeting as an uneventful discussion of Russia’s adoption policy. Pressed further, Trump’s son disclosed emails indicating that Russian nationals were offering information that could harm Clinton’s candidacy, and he defended his decision to take the meeting. President Trump and his son have both insisted that there was no bargain struck between the campaign and the Russian government at that meeting.

Veselnitskaya told a similar story, but today’s charges portray her as untruthful, willing to obstruct an inquiry into Russian government behavior that could prove embarrassing.

Laundering Suit Ends as Russian Firm, U.S. Claim Victory

The Prevezon case stemmed from an attempt to pinpoint and seize millions of dollars that had been stolen in an elaborate Russian tax heist and laundered into New York real estate. The theft of the funds, which netted some $230 million, was executed through the targeting of an American-backed investment fund in Russia, Bill Browder’s Hermitage Capital.

The U.S. claims that among the materials Veselnitskaya sent to the Russian prosecutor, for insertion into the legal response from the Russian government, was purported evidence that people tied to Browder’s company and not corrupt Russian officials, were behind the $230 million fraud.

U.S. prosecutors accused Denis Katsyv, Prevezon’s main shareholder, of helping to launder the money by buying Manhattan condominiums. Katsyv is the son of an ex-Moscow transportation minister.

Money was siphoned out of Russia through a maze of foreign banks and concealed in assets and accounts around the world. The U.S. agreed to take $5.9 million to settle the money-laundering lawsuit on the eve of a trial.

The case had broader ramifications for the U.S.-Russia relationship, leading to a dispute that reverberates to this day and continues to figure in investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. After a Russian lawyer working for Hermitage died in custody there, the U.S. adopted sanctions policies to punish foreign torture of political dissidents.

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