In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYT,  Azerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell book
BBC - Honduras - CIA Trial book - NY Mag

SDNY COURTHOUSE, Jan 4 – Uladzimir Danskoi, operator of Russian America’s Brooklyn office and  immigration attorney Julia Greenberg  are on trial charged with preparing and submitting fraudulent asylum applications, affidavits, and other documents and coaching asylum seekers to lie under oath during immigration proceedings.

On December 6, 2022, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge J. Paul Oetken presided over the trial. Inner City Press went and covered it. 

The Assistant US Attorney asked a government witness about particular asylum applications, in which false claims for persecution for sexual orientation were made.

There were references to torture - and, in the docket, written arguments about how the jury will be informed about the professional obligations of attorneys, with reference criminal cases before Judges Paul G. Gardephe and Jesse M. Furman against Michael Avenatti, sentenced on December 5 to 14 additional years in prison in California.

On December 7, the witness described being coached by Julia Greenberg for his asylum interview on Long Island. At Macy's he bought clothes, including loudly-colored pants and boots with chains on them - these were handed around to the jurors, who'd waited while two new monitors were hooked up by hardworking Court staff to ensure they could see the exhibits.

On December 8, a man from Kharkiv, Ukraine was on the stand, testifying how after a call to Russian America he was told to set up a political blog on which to base his asylum claim. He had said he supported himself by trading crypto, not that he was a blogger. But Russian America said it would promote his blog. The jurors' screens were each working again.

On December 9, the witness from Kharkiv was still on the stand. (During a break, Judge Oetken has presided over a separately multi-defendant trial down in Courtroom 318). The witness was reading his conversations about his supposed political blogging - in fact, it was another who wrote the posts, including about how Russian speakers were treated in Ukraine.

On December 12, the jury heard audio from Greenberg's post-arrest statement, at length. And the US Attorney's Office wrote in to Judge Oetken over the weekend with a proposed charge that "there has been evidence that Greenberg made certain statements in which the Government claims she admitted certain facts charged in the indictment," adapted from Sand, Modern Federal Jury Instructions, Instr. 5-19.

Jump cut to December 19. With the jury still deliberating, they asked for binders of evidence and the lawyers remained on stand-by. Then: "JURY VERDICT as to Uladzimir Danskoi (2) Guilty on Count 1s and Julia Greenberg (3) Guilty on Count 1s."

On May 19, 2023 a co-defendant in the case, Yury Mosha, put in a sentencing memo asking for a non-custodial sentence. He emphasizes that he was "raised in Novorossiysk, Russian during the height of communist rule." He is not a naturalized US citizen and argues that without a sentence below a year, or even 180 days, "he will be ineligible for various types of relief from deportation."

The overall case is US v. Danskio, et al., 21-cr-92 (Oetken)

***

Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron.

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
SDNY Press Room 480, front cubicle
500 Pearl Street, NY NY 10007 USA

Mail: Box 20047, Dag Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

 Copyright 2006-2022 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com