Giuliani associates: Debts, lawsuits and a high-interest loan preceded associates' rise
As federal prosecutors pursue their case against a pair of South Florida businessmen at the center of an alleged plot to hijack the US political process, their trail is sure to lead here if it hasn't already.
This strip of white sand beaches and towering condos -- a half dozen bearing the name Trump -- is a key location in the lives of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, the enigmatic Soviet-born emigres who rose from obscurity to rubbing elbows with the Republican political elite.
Parnas, who has recently initiated talks with impeachment investigators through his attorney, was once chauffeured around this beach city by a white-gloved driver behind the wheel of a Rolls Royce, two sources recalled. At the same time, his business was failing, and he was accused of squatting in an associate's condo and threatening the man at gunpoint when asked to leave -- both claims Parnas, 47, denied. Parnas was never charged with a crime.
Fruman lived with his wife and three kids in a luxury unit 31 floors above the Atlantic. He recently faced foreclosure on another high-rise unit in neighboring Bal Harbour if he didn't pay up on a $3 million loan he and a brother took out against the property, according to court records. It was a loan that had to be repaid within a year and which required interest of $22,500 a month, the records show. The transaction appears crucial to Parnas' and Fruman's ability to have made large political donations at the heart of the ongoing federal investigation.
Fruman's finances -- where his money was coming from and where it was going -- were a hotly contested issue in recent court filings in a pending divorce case. Among his estranged wife's claims: He'd been creating companies in her name, without her knowledge.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/giuliani-associates-debts-lawsuits-and-a-high-interest-loan-preceded-associates-rise/ar-BBWvIoz?li=BBnbcA1
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