Maria Butina's lawyer says his client was just joking when she sent messages offering sex in exchange for favors and just commiserating with a friend when complaining about her political operative boyfriend.
The government has accused Butina of being an unregistered Russian foreign agent and has kept her incarcerated pending trial because of the moneyed connections that could get her out of the country.
Attorney Robert N. Driscoll also argued that Butina should be released from jail, where she has been held since she was arrested July 15 and charged with working to infiltrate the National Rifle Association and other conservative political groups as an unregistered agent of Russia.
Butina was ordered held without bond pending trial by U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson of Washington, who cited risks that Butina might flee or resume her alleged unlawful activities, as well as the government’s significant evidence against her.
Last week, Butina was moved from the D.C. jail to another facility in Alexandria, Va. The Russian Embassy in Washington had complained about the conditions in which she was being held.
Driscoll's motion says Butina's text messages have been misunderstood.
In court papers, they argued that her romantic relationship with a 56-year-old American political operative was “duplicitous” and that she had at least once offered sex to someone else “in exchange for a position within a special interest organization.” Prosecutors said she also had expressed “disdain” about having to live with the operative, who has been identified as South Dakota-based consultant Paul Erickson.
The evidence that prosecutors turned over to the defense to support those claims showed that they were nothing more than a “sexist smear,” Driscoll wrote, adding that they were designed to “gratuitously and falsely” impugn her reputation.
Driscoll wrote that the claim that Butina had offered sex for a position leans on a 2015 joking text exchange between Butina and a Russian man.
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Butina is being prosecuted by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, which has not yet responded to the filing.
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Driscoll also argued that the prosecution’s evidence that Butina had expressed disdain about Erickson is based solely on a 2015 text exchange with a female friend who had complained about her own boyfriend.
In a chain replete with emoticons and cat pictures, Butina responded that Erickson had been “bugging” her about his mother, causing her to feel like she was “residing in a nursing home,” the filing said.
“Three-year old, offhand complaints about one’s romantic partner being too close to their mother should be out of bounds, and certainly not asserted to be proof of a ‘duplicitous’ relationship,” Driscoll wrote.
The government has complaints of its own.
On Thursday, prosecutors filed with the court a letter they had written to Driscoll, complaining that comments he has made to the media violate a standing local order prohibiting lawyers from talking about the merits of the case or its evidence outside court. They wrote that they were not yet asking the judge for relief but could do so in the future.