Russian in prisoner swap ends US hack-and-trade conviction appeal

Russian in prisoner swap ends US hack-and-trade conviction appeal

By Nate Raymond

A Russian businessman released as part of last week's prisoner swap between Russia and the West is dropping his appeal of his U.S. conviction for engaging in a hack-and-trade scheme, after being informed that any further litigation could jeopardize the commutation of his sentence, his lawyer said on Friday.

Vladislav Klyushin had been serving a nine-year prison sentence after a federal jury in Boston last year found him guilty of participating in a $93 million insider-trading scheme that relied on secret earnings information obtained through hacking.

Klyushin, who owned a Moscow-based information technology company called M-13 that did work for the Russian government, had been in the midst of an appeal when he was released in the 24 prisoner exchange on Aug. 1.

Maksim Nemtsev, his lawyer, told Reuters in an email that immediately after the swap it was not clear whether Klyushin could continue pursuing his appeal, which raised "unprecedented legal issues."

But Nemtsev said the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of the Pardon Attorney took the position that a clause in the grant of clemency President Joe Biden signed commuting Klyushin's sentence required the Russian to waive his appellate rights.

According to court papers, Biden or his successor has the discretion to void the commutation and have Klyushin's sentence reinstated if the president determines any condition of his grant of clemency is violated.

Given the government's position, Klyushin on Thursday informed the court he would "not take further action on his appeal."

"If there was no language prohibiting it, we would have pushed forward," Nemtsev said.

The Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Klyushin was apprehended in Switzerland during a ski trip in March 2021 and extradited to the United States to face charges that he and his associates made $93 million trading stocks based on yet-to-be-announced information that hackers stole about hundreds of publicly traded companies.

M-13 not only did work for Russian President Vladimir Putin's government but also employed Ivan Ermakov, a former Russian military intelligence officer wanted by the American government for his alleged involvement in hacking schemes aimed at interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, according to U.S. prosecutors.

Ermakov was also charged over the hack-and-trade scheme but was never arrested. He could not be reached for comment.