Paul Erickson, Maria Butina's bf, pleaded GUILTY to wire fraud & money laundering.

[MelissaB]

BREAKING: Paul Erickson, convicted #Russian
🇷🇺
agent Maria Butina's boyfriend, pleaded GUILTY to wire fraud and #MoneyLaundering. admitting that he conned “DG” into wiring him $100,000 for a fake "real estate investment," then wired $1,000 to “MB.”

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Paul Erickson, Russian Agent Maria Butina’s Boyfriend, Pleads Guilty to Fraud

Erickson admits he conned someone called only “D.G.” into wiring him $100,000, under the pretense that the money was for a real estate investment in North Dakota. It was not.

Paul Erickson, the former boyfriend of convicted Russian agent Maria Butina, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering, according to a plea agreement filed in a South Dakota federal court Monday afternoon.

In a two-page statement detailing the factual basis for the plea, Erickson said he conned someone only identified as “D.G.” into wiring him $100,000 under the pretense that the money was for a real estate investment in North Dakota. As part of the plea filed in U.S. district court in South Dakota, Erickson admits the money was not for a real estate deal. He also notes that he wired $1,000 of the money to a person called “M.B.”

An attorney for Erickson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case against Erickson, a well-known conservative operative who shuttled between Washington D.C. and South Dakota, was separate from the one lodged against Butina in Washington, D.C.

More: https://www.thedailybeast.com/paul-erickson-russian-agent-maria-butinas-boyfriend-pleads-guilty-to-fraud

[MelissaB]

1. Rest of Dena Grayson's thread

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[triron]

2. Rachel Maddow reported also there was a plea agreement which was redacted.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Mitt Romney's adviser, with all kinds of Republican links

As a former board member of the American Conservative Union—an influential conservative group that puts on the annual Conservative Political Action Conference—Erickson has a formidable network of contacts on the right. For example, he served on the American Conservative Union board with Becky Norton Dunlop, a senior Trump transition team official.
...
Erickson has been active within Republican and conservatives circles for decades, first appearing on the national stage as treasurer of the College Republicans in 1984. A 1992 Los Angeles Times report identifies him as the national political director for Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaign, while a more recent report gives him a more senior title.

“Erickson had participated in every GOP presidential primary campaign since 1980 and was Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaign manager in 1992,” an article in Forbes in December 2016 reads. “He is a sort of ‘secret master of the political universe’ known almost exclusively to the cognoscenti.”

Erickson was an adviser to the Mitt Romney campaign, a former board member of the ACU, a 2012 Mitt Romney delegate, and an attendee at the Trump inaugural address. He’s also identified in a USA Today obituary as a “friend and ally” of the late Breitbart News founder Andrew Breitbart.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-kremlin-and-gop-have-a-new-friendand-boy-does-she-love-guns

[malaise]

4. K & R

They are all crooks