A wealthy Russian businessman sentenced in Boston to nine years in jail for a multi-million stock hacking scheme was freed in this week’s prisoner swap, and his local lawyer says he may not have to pay restitution.
A millionaire Russian businessman sentenced in Boston to nine years in jail for a massive stock market hacking scheme was freed in this week’s prisoner swap, and his local lawyer says he may not have to pay restitution.
Vladislav Klyushin, 42, of Moscow, who has ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the country’s military and spy networks, “was in the swap,” and the “clemency by President Biden” is unclear about any damages he still owes America, Boston attorney Maksim Nemtsev told the Herald.
“It remains to be seen if he does have to pay restitution,” Nemtsev said Friday.
The voluminous court case against Klyushin states he’s not an ordinary Russian citizen.
“The defendant is not simply one of Russia’s approximately 144 million citizens,” a pre-trial detention memo states. “He holds the below-pictured Medal of Honor, awarded in June 2020 by the president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin.”
That photo and others of key events inside Russia — including one to “commemorate Mikhail Kalashnikov,” the inventor of the AK assault weapon — show him glad-handing some of the biggest names in his government, court records state.
