One of Rudy Giuliani's former associates pled guilty to illegal campaign finance violations Friday.
Igor Fruman, 56, was one of a team of collaborators Giuliani tapped to collect damaging information about the Biden family in Ukraine during last year's contentious presidential election. Fruman, who was born in Belarus, was charged alongside business partner Lev Parnas for covering up an illegal donation of more than $325,000 to Trump's 2020 re-election campaign.
Both men, alongside a third defendant named Andrey Kukushkin, were also charged with soliciting donations for U.S. political campaigns as part of a plot to obtain legal marijuana distribution licenses, according to Reuters.
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During court proceedings Friday, Fruman pled guilty to the latter crime and admitted to soliciting money from a foreign national as a part of the scheme. He faces more than three years in prison.
"At that time, I had little experience in the rules surrounding political donations," Fruman said during Friday's hearing. "But I generally understood that foreign nationals and individuals who are not American citizens were not allowed to make political donations in the United States."
The plea agreement does not include any indication that Fruman will cooperate with prosecutors working on a parallel investigation into Giuliani's dealings in Ukraine, Reuters reported.
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