Pro-Kremlin Russian Nationalist Politician Calls for Rendition of William Browder to Russia

January 28, 2016

Pro-Krem­lin Russ­ian Nation­al­ist Politi­cian Calls for Ren­di­tion of William Brow­der to Russia

 

28 Jan­u­ary 2016 – Pro-Krem­lin Russ­ian nation­al­ist politi­cian, Eduard Limonov, has pub­licly called for the ille­gal ren­di­tion to Rus­sia of UK-based Putin crit­ic William Browder.

 

“The task of our spe­cial ser­vices is to catch Brow­der and bring him in a sack to Rus­sia,” Eduard Limonov told to the pro-Putin news agency “Novy Den.”  (http://newdaynews.ru/moskow/555722.html).

 

This is the sec­ond ille­gal ren­di­tion threat against Mr. Brow­der ema­nat­ing from Rus­sia. In the sum­mer of 2014, Mr. Brow­der received a warn­ing from the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice of a sim­i­lar Russ­ian threat. The threat relat­ed to actions being put in place to “find” Mr Brow­der in Lon­don and “poten­tial­ly return” him to Russia.

 

This most recent threat came just as Brow­der called on British Prime Min­is­ter Cameron to impose trav­el sanc­tions and asset freezes on senior offi­cials in the Putin regime in response to the find­ing of the Russ­ian state’s com­plic­i­ty in the Litvi­nenko mur­der which endan­gered lives of oth­ers in Britain.

 

In an open let­ter in the Guardian, William Brow­der said:

 

“You can’t undo an act of state-spon­sored ter­ror­ism on British soil from 2006, but for the long-term safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of every­one in Britain you must act in a way that leaves no doubt that the UK gov­ern­ment will not be cowed. You must stand firm and ensure seri­ous con­se­quences for any­one who dares to repeat such an atro­cious act on British soil.”(http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/26/litvinenko-report-punish-russia-cameron-bill-browder)

 

Last month, on 15 Decem­ber 2015, Russ­ian Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka lashed out against William Brow­der, accus­ing him of work­ing with West­ern spe­cial ser­vices to desta­bilise Rus­sia by pro­duc­ing a cor­rup­tion expose against the Russ­ian Gen­er­al Prosecutor.

 

“I have absolute­ly no doubts that this men­da­cious movie has been ordered by W. Brow­der and intel­li­gence ser­vices who are stand­ing behind him… There is a glob­al pur­pose — to com­pro­mise the Russ­ian Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al, his region­al sub­or­di­nates, and once again to denounce our coun­try as…  the coun­try wor­thy of eco­nom­ic and oth­er sanc­tions,” said Russ­ian Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor Chai­ka. (http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2876887)

 

Mr Limonov has become an out­spo­ken sup­port­er of Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Putin. This week, he tried to dis­miss the expose of cor­rup­tion involv­ing Vladimir Putin as “part of US war against Rus­sia.” https://www.therussophile.org/limonov-accusations-of-corruption-against-putin-are-part-of-us-war-against-russia.html/

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:​

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky Campaign

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

billbrowder.com

 

US Appeals Court to Hear Emergency Motion on Disqualification of Lawyer John Moscow in the Magnitsky Case in New York

January 18, 2016

US Appeals Court to Hear Emer­gency Motion on Dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of Lawyer John Moscow in the Mag­nit­sky Case in New York

 

18 Jan­u­ary 2016 – The Unit­ed States Court of Appeals for the Sec­ond Cir­cuit has agreed to an emer­gency hear­ing to be held at 10 am on Fri­day, 22 Jan­u­ary 2016, on an appli­ca­tion from Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment seek­ing to sus­pend the case of US vs Pre­ve­zon, to hear an appeal which will deter­mine whether lawyers with a seri­ous con­flict of inter­est should be allowed to remain on the case.

 

Hermitage’s appli­ca­tion aris­es out of U.S. law firm Bak­er Hostetler and its part­ner, John Moscow, switch­ing sides in the Russ­ian mon­ey laun­der­ing case from rep­re­sent­ing the vic­tim – Her­mitage, to rep­re­sent­ing the ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the crime – Pre­ve­zon Holdings.

 

Her­mitage said in sup­port of its motion for stay in the legal proceeding:

 

“A stay pend­ing appeal is in the pub­lic inter­est. A lawyer’s oblig­a­tion to pre­serveclient con­fi­dences “touch­es upon vital con­cerns of the legal pro­fes­sion and the public’s inter­estin the scrupu­lous admin­is­tra­tion of justice.”

 

Hermitage’s motion is sup­port­ed by the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice, who said to the Appeals Court that the con­duct of Bak­er Hostetler rep­re­sents an “unheard of”, “extreme­ly rare” and “egre­gious” case of con­flict of inter­est giv­en that the law firm not only switched sides but went fur­ther by accus­ing Her­mitage, its for­mer client, of the crime of which Her­mitage has been the victim.

 

“The egre­gious sit­u­a­tion seen here, where an attor­ney for a vic­tim attempts to switch sides to rep­re­sent a ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the offense, is extreme­ly rare, and it is unheard of that such attor­ney would go fur­ther and accuse his for­mer client, the vic­tim, of com­mit­ting the offense. Accord­ing­ly, courts have sel­dom been called upon to rule on such an extreme con­flict, often because it is sim­ply not done,” said the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice in their affir­ma­tion of Hermitage’s motion.

 

On 18 Decem­ber 2015, the dis­trict court judge Thomas Griesa in the South­ern Dis­trict of New York grant­ed Hermitage’s motion to dis­qual­i­fy Bak­er Hostetler and John Moscow, find­ing it would be improp­er for Bak­er Hostetler to con­tin­ue to rep­re­sent defen­dants Pre­ve­zon Hold­ings because of Bak­er Hostetler’s pri­or rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Her­mitage. How­ev­er, on 8 Jan­u­ary 2016, Judge Griesa reversed his deci­sion rul­ing that Prevezon’s right to the choice of lawyers was more impor­tant than Hermitage’s right to not be betrayed by for­mer counsel.

 

Pre­ve­zon Hold­ings is owned by the son of a senior Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cial and, accord­ing to the U.S. Depart­ment of Justice’s law­suit, has been involved in laun­der­ing pro­ceeds from the US$230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Hermitage’s late lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky. The US Depart­ment of Jus­tice, hav­ing traced pro­ceeds stolen in Rus­sia to Prevezon’s real estate prop­er­ties in Man­hat­tan, filed a civ­il law­suit seek­ing mon­ey laun­der­ing fines and for­fei­ture of US$14 mil­lion in Prevezon’s US assets. After the assets were frozen, Pre­ve­zon sought the ser­vices of John Moscow and Bak­er Hostetler. In spite of the obvi­ous con­flict of inter­est, John Moscow and Bak­er Hostetler agreed to rep­re­sent alleged ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the US$230 mil­lion crime – ignor­ing the fact that they had been pre­vi­ous­ly hired by Her­mitage to iden­ti­fy and bring to jus­tice per­pe­tra­tors and ben­e­fi­cia­ries of this crime.

 

On 13 Jan­u­ary 2016, Her­mitage filed an emer­gency motion to sus­pend the pro­ceed­ings in the asset for­fei­ture case against Pre­ve­zon until the issue of John Moscow and Bak­er Hostetler’s dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion is resolved.

 

In sup­port­ing the Hermitage’s motion, the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice stated:

 

“After tak­ing almost $200,000 of Hermitage’s mon­ey to attempt to pre­vent Her­mitage from being accused of com­mit­ting the fraud, [Bak­er Hostetler’s part­ner] Moscow is now tak­ing the mon­ey of an alleged ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the very same fraud to him­self accuse Her­mitage of com­mit­ting the fraud.”

 

“Allow­ing the tri­al to take place in this fash­ion, and to expose Her­mitage to such irrepara­ble injury at the hands of its for­mer coun­sel, would be a mis­car­riage of jus­tice set­ting a prece­dent that would severe­ly harm crime vic­tims’ inter­ests and could chill the coop­er­a­tion of vic­tims with law enforce­ment,” said the US Jus­tice Depart­ment in its filing.

 

The US$230 fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing case was uncov­ered by Hermitage’s Russ­ian lawyer, Sergei Mag­nit­sky, who was tor­tured and killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody after he had giv­en tes­ti­mo­ny impli­cat­ing Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials in the scheme. To per­pe­trate the US$230 mil­lion fraud, the Russ­ian crim­i­nal organ­i­sa­tion stole three Russ­ian com­pa­nies belong­ing to the Her­mitage Fund and then sought an ille­gal refund of US$230 mil­lion of tax­es pre­vi­ous­ly paid by those companies.

 

When Hermitage’s Russ­ian lawyers report­ed the offi­cials involved, the lawyers them­selves became sub­ject of retal­i­a­tion from Russ­ian author­i­ties. In 2008, Her­mitage hired Bak­er Hostetler’s part­ner John Moscow to pro­tect Her­mitage and its lawyers and exec­u­tives from the retal­i­a­tion. Mr. Moscow had pre­vi­ous­ly been a spe­cial­ist in com­bat­ing Russ­ian organ­ised crime and cor­rup­tion in the New York Dis­trict Attorney’s office. He assist­ed Her­mitage with the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the US$230 mil­lion fraud and liais­ing with the US law enforce­ment in bring­ing those ben­e­fi­cia­ries to jus­tice. Sev­er­al years lat­er the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice traced some of the US$230 mil­lion pro­ceeds to Man­hat­tan prop­er­ties owned by Pre­ve­zon and filed a law­suit in which John Moscow and Bak­er Hostetler appeared for Prevezon.

 

The hear­ing will take place in New York in the Thur­good Mar­shall U.S. Cour­t­house, 17^th floor, Room 1703 lat­er this week, on 22 Jan­u­ary 2016.

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact: 

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky Campaign

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

 

 

New York Judge Allows Lawyer Who Betrayed Victims in the Magnitsky Case to Switch Sides and Defend the Alleged Beneficiaries of the Same Crime

January 11, 2016

New York Judge Allows Lawyer Who Betrayed Vic­tims in the Mag­nit­sky Case to Switch Sides and Defend the Alleged Ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the Same Crime

11 Jan­u­ary 2016 – On 8 Jan­u­ary 2016, New York dis­trict court judge Thomas Griesa reversed his pre­vi­ous deci­sion to dis­qual­i­fy lawyer John Moscow and New York law firm Bak­er Hostetler.

The new deci­sion allows Bak­er Hostetler and John Moscow to con­tin­ue act­ing as defence coun­sel for Pre­ve­zon, a Cyprus com­pa­ny owned by the son of a senior Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cial, accused by the US Jus­tice Depart­ment of acquir­ing Man­hat­tan prop­er­ties with the pro­ceeds from the $230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky, Hermitage’s mur­dered Russ­ian lawyer. Bak­er Hostetler pre­vi­ous­ly rep­re­sent­ed Her­mitage as a vic­tim of the same crime.

The judge’s deci­sion came three weeks after he had dis­qual­i­fied John Moscow and Bak­er Hostetler on the same set of issues, con­clud­ing it would be improp­er for them to con­tin­ue as defence coun­sel giv­en the vio­la­tion of New York Rules of Pro­fes­sion­al Con­duct and Bak­er Hostetler’s duty to their for­mer client, Hermitage.

The US gov­ern­men­t’s case against Pre­ve­zon seeks the for­fei­ture of New York prop­er­ty and bank accounts worth US$14 mil­lion and mon­ey laun­der­ing fines. In their com­plaint, the gov­ern­ment high­lights mil­lions of dol­lars in pay­ments received by Pre­ve­zon from shell com­pa­nies from the $230 mil­lion Russ­ian fraud, that were false­ly described as pay­ments for over 500 Ital­ian bath tubs and auto spare parts – goods that Pre­ve­zon nev­er deliv­ered to anyone.

The series of dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion motions filed by Her­mitage came as a result of Bak­er Hostetler and John Moscow switch­ing from assist­ing Her­mitage in 2008 – 2009 with iden­ti­fy­ing per­pe­tra­tors of the US$230 mil­lion fraud and bring­ing its ben­e­fi­cia­ries to the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice, to rep­re­sent­ing the alleged ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the same fraud against the U.S. Jus­tice Department’s law­suit four years later.

In 2008, Her­mitage hired New York lawyer John Moscow and his law firm Bak­er Hostetler after Hermitage’s Russ­ian lawyers who exposed the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment com­plic­i­ty in the US$230 mil­lion fraud came under attack from the Russ­ian authorities.

John Moscow was a rec­og­nized expert in fight­ing Russ­ian organ­ised crime and mon­ey laun­der­ing from his pre­vi­ous work in the New York Dis­trict Attorney’s Office. Togeth­er with his new firm, Bak­er Hostetler, he devel­oped a strat­e­gy of issu­ing requests for infor­ma­tion to US banks and seek­ing legal action from the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice, includ­ing the for­fei­ture of U.S. assets of per­pe­tra­tors and beneficiaries.

As a result of the work of John Moscow and sub­se­quent work by oth­er Her­mitage lawyers, in Sep­tem­ber 2013, the US Jus­tice Depart­ment launched a US for­fei­ture case in rela­tion to Denis Katsyv’s com­pa­ny Pre­ve­zon in the New York dis­trict court.

Bak­er Hostetler and John Moscow then switched sides and began to work as defence coun­sel for the alleged mon­ey laun­der­ers after pre­vi­ous­ly help­ing the vic­tim of the same crime. Most recent­ly, as one of defence strate­gies Bak­er Hostetler and John Moscow accused Her­mitage of com­mit­ting the same $230 mil­lion fraud which John Moscow was help­ing to defend them against in 2009.

The US Gov­ern­ment who sup­port­ed Her­mitage’s motion to dis­qual­i­fy John Moscow and Bak­er Hostetler said:

“The egre­gious sit­u­a­tion seen here, where an attor­ney for a vic­tim attempts to switch sides to rep­re­sent a ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the offence, is extreme­ly rare, and it is even rar­er that such attor­ney would go fur­ther and accuse his for­mer client, the vic­tim, of com­mit­ting the offence.”

On 15 Decem­ber 2015, Her­mitage filed a motion with New York dis­trict court seek­ing to dis­qual­i­fy Bak­er Hostetler and John Moscow for breach­ing the duty of loy­al­ty to Her­mitage as for­mer client, cit­ing the New York Rules of Pro­fes­sion­al Conduct.

On 18 Decem­ber 2015 judge Griesa approved Her­mitage’s request to dis­qual­i­fy John Moscow and Bak­er Hostetler.

The judge then changed his mind, and last Fri­day reversed his deci­sion. To jus­ti­fy his new deci­sion, judge Griesa con­clud­ed that the right of Pre­ve­zon to their choice of coun­sel is greater than the right of Her­mitage to not be betrayed by their for­mer lawyers.

“Per­haps most impor­tant­ly, dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion would mean depriv­ing Pre­ve­zon of its right to the coun­sel of its choice. While this right is not absolute, it impos­es a high bur­den on the par­ty seek­ing dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion. The bal­ance of the rel­e­vant fac­tors tips toward deny­ing the motion to dis­qual­i­fy,” said judge Thomas Griesa in his opinion.

In fil­ings sup­port­ing Her­mitage’s motion to dis­qual­i­fy Bak­er Hostetler, the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice warned of the chill­ing effect that a neg­a­tive deci­sion could have on future cases.

“Vic­tims con­sid­er­ing retain­ing attor­neys to rep­re­sent their inter­ests will be aware that their coun­sel can be paid to accuse them of com­mit­ting that very offence and to defend the per­pe­tra­tor. This prece­dent will under­stand­ably have a “chill­ing effect,”… deter­ring crime vic­tims from retain­ing attor­neys to inves­ti­gate and to inform the Gov­ern­ment of offences, as those attor­neys will be per­mit­ted to be turned against them by well-resourced per­pe­tra­tors,” said the U.S. government.

Her­mitage intends to appeal the rul­ing to the Unit­ed States Court of Appeals for the Sec­ond Cir­cuit, one of the thir­teen Unit­ed States Courts of Appeals which has appel­late juris­dic­tion over New York, Con­necti­cut, and Vermont.

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact: 

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky Campaign

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

 

 

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