The lawyer for Ukraine billionaire gas middleman Dmytro Firtash who wired $1 million to Lev Parnas’s wife confirmed that he was the source of the money, Reuters reported.
But Dubai-based Swiss attorney Ralph Oswald Isenegger told Reuters in a statement that he was not acting on Firtash’s behalf in sending the money.
Isenegger reportedly claimed that the $1 million was a loan, with interest. Manhattan federal prosecutors said in court on Tuesday that the money had been “papered over” as an unsecured loan, and suggested that it was, in fact, “income.”
The lawyer for the Ukrainian oligarch reportedly added that he had demanded that Parnas and his wife, Svetlana, return the $1 million after the south Florida businessman was arrested.
“Neither Mr. Parnas nor his wife has responded to my request,” Isenegger reportedly said.
