Las Vegas – A federal judge has denied the United States government application to release a former from the prison FBI informant who invented a story About President Joe Biden and his son Hunter accepting bribes that were later made central for the effort of political judgment of the Republicans.
The decision, issued Wednesday by the American district judge Otis Wright in Los Angeles, arrives weeks after a new prosecutor reassigned the case of Alexander Smirnov jointly presented a motion with his lawyers Asking for his release while his sentence appeals. In the motion, the United States government had said that it would review its “case theory.”
Wright said in his written order that Smirnov remains the risk of flight, even if prosecutors say they will review their case.
“The fact is that Smirnov has been sentenced and sentenced to seventy -two months in prison, providing a wide incentive to flee,” he said.
Smirnov, 44, was sentenced In January, after declaring himself guilty of tax evasion and lying to the FBI about the false bribery scheme, which was described by previous prosecutors assigned to the case as an effort to influence the result of the 2020 presidential elections.
His lawyers, David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, told Associated Press in a text that appeal to the judge’s decision and “will continue to advocate for the release of Mr. Smirnov.” The United States Prosecutor’s Office in Los Angeles declined to comment.
Smirnov had originally been prosecuted by the former special lawyer of the Department of Justice, David Weiss, who resigned in January the days before President Donald Trump returned to the White House for his second term.
Smirnov has been in custody since February 2024. He was arrested at Las Vegas airport After returning to the United States from abroad.
Smirnov, a double American and Israeli citizen, falsely told his FBI handler that around 2015, the executives of the Ukrainian Energy Company Burisma had paid the then vice president Biden and his son $ 5 million each.
The explosive claim in 2020 occurred after Smirnov expressed “prejudice” about Biden as presidential candidate, according to prosecutors at that time. Actually, the researchers discovered that Smirnov had only routine businesses with burisma as of 2017, after Biden’s mandate as vice president.
The authorities said that Smirnov’s false claim “triggered a fire storm in Congress” when he resurfaced years later as part of the trial trial investigation into Biden, who won the presidency on Trump in 2020. The administration Biden dismissed the effort of political judgment as a “trick.”
Weiss also brought charges of weapons and taxes against Hunter Biden, who was supposed to be sentenced in December after being condemned in a trial in the case of weapons and declare yourself guilty. But He was forgiven By his father, who said he believed that “raw politics has infected this process and led to a spontaneous abortion of justice.”
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Follow the coverage of the Hunter Biden AP in https://apnews.com/hub/hunter-biden.
