Washington Former White House adviser Stephen Bannon pleaded not guilty to charges of wire fraud and money laundering on Thursday after federal prosecutors in New York announced that Bannon and three others had been accused of abusing alleged donors in a $ 25 million money campaign to to build a wall along the southern border.
Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said Audrey Strauss Bannon, Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea were arrested Thursday morning. Bannon was seized by US Postal Service agents off the coast of Connecticut on a 152-meter yacht registered to exile Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, according to sources in legislation. The indictment went unresolved Thursday morning.
Bannon was released on a $ 5 million bond Thursday afternoon, and must forget his passport. He can only travel after work to DC, Maryland, Connecticut, and the eastern and southern neighborhoods of New York.
Bannon, 66, participated in the Trump campaign in 2016 and then served in the White House as chief strategist until he was forced out in August 2017. He is the president’s sixth close colleague to tackle federal charges since 2017.
Mr. Trump distanced himself from Bannon on Thursday, telling White House reporters that “I have not been with him for a very long time.” The president also said he did not like the private attempt to fund the construction of the boundary wall and believed “it was done for showboating reasons.”
In a July tweet, Mr. Trump referred to a section of the wall built by a “private group that raised money through advertising” and said “it was only done to make me look bad, and perhsps [sic] it does not even work now. Would have been built like rest of Wall, 500 plus miles. “Others involved in the ‘We Build the Wall’ project are former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, Sheriff David Clarke and Curt Schilling, none of whom were named in the indictment.
The four men named in Thursday’s indictment are accused of defrauding hundreds of thousands of people who donated to the “We Build the Wall” fundraising campaign raked in more than $ 25 million to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the indictment.
Federal prosecutors said donors were repeatedly assured that 100% of the money raised would be used to build the wall, but that claims were false. Kolfage, Badolato and Bannon apparently signed on to those claims knowing that donors would be encouraged to donate if they believed all funds went to wall construction.
“Some of those donors wrote directly to Kolfage that they did not have a lot of money and were skeptical about online fundraising campaigns, but they gave what they could because they trusted that Kolfage would keep his word on how their donations would be spent,” the prosecutor said.
Instead, the justice department said the men benefited from the money laundering scheme. Bannon reportedly received more than $ 1 million from ‘We Build the Wall’, which was truncated by a non-profit he controlled and some were used to cover his personal expenses and pay Kolfage.
According to the indictment, Kolfage, who organized the campaign, received more than $ 350,000 from money donated to “We Build the Wall”, which he then used to pay for renovations at home, payments for a boat, a luxury SUV , a golf cart, jewelry, cosmetic surgery, personal tax payments and credit card debt. “
To hide the payments from the money-laundering campaign, federal prosecutors said the four men ran money through the non-profit and a shell company controlled by Shea. The men hid the money with false invoices and fraudulent vendor arrangements to ensure the scheme remained confidential, according to the indictment.
“Although we spent Build the Wall money on the construction of the boundary wall, hundreds of thousands of dollars were hidden from We Build the Wall for the personal use and benefit of Kolfage, Bannon, Badolato and Timothy Shea,” federal prosecutors said.
Under an agreement reached by Bannon, Kolfage and Badolato days after the launch of the money-laundering campaign, Kolfage would secretly have to pay $ 100,000 in advance and then $ 20,000 a month, according to the indictment. To keep the deal out of the public eye, Bannon agreed to truncate payments from We Build the Wall to Kolfage through the nonprofit he controlled.
Kolfage received the $ 100,000 in February 2019, as stipulated in the agreement with Bannon and Badolato, and for the next two months, Kolfage was paid $ 20,000 in what federal prosecutors described as a ‘monthly salary’, according to the indictment.
In early April 2019, Kolfage received subsequent payments of $ 20,000 through other third-party entities that claimed to be suppliers for We Build the Wall, federal prosecutors said.
According to the indictment, the men learned We Build the Wall was under federal criminal investigation in October 2019 and “subsequently took additional steps to conceal the fraudulent scheme.”
Each of the four is accused of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to launder money, federal prosecutors said. Each has a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Guo, the billionaire owner of the yacht on which Bannon was arrested, is a vocal critic of the Chinese Communist Party and fled the country in 2014 as authorities. ready to bring a large variety of corruption charges against him, accusations that he has denied. According to an October report by Axios, Guo Media, a company affiliated with the billionaire, hired Bannon under a one-year, $ 1 million contract for consulting services began in August 2018. The New York Times reported that Guo and Bannon first met in 2017, and Bannon appears frequently on the Guo Media news platform, with several videos showing the couple on Guo’s hunt.
Although Mr. Trump has now distanced himself from Bannon, he once praised him.
“Steve Bannon will be a tough and smart new voice at @BreitbartNews … maybe even better than ever before. Fake News needs the competition!” the president tweeted in August 2017 when Bannon left the White House to return to the far right.
Read the accusation here
Pat Milton, Grace Segers, Kathryn Watson, Paula Reid and Clare Hymes contributed reports.
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