In a time of curiouser and curiouser deaths in the extended Russian world of money laundering that overlaps Trump's commercial activities, a coincidence has occurred.
Nikolai Gorokhov a lawyer for the Magnitsky family has fallen from a building on the day before he was to appear before a Moscow appeals court.
More interesting is that whether Gorokhov had an “accident” or not — why would you get that involved in the hoisting of a jacuzzi. Then again, there were claims that Magnitzky had caused his own death, by getting ill even though his body bore the marks of a beating.
Gorokhov was also a key witness in the Prevezon money-laundering case that ran through Cyprus, a case managed by Preet Bharara, US attorney fired by Trump.
Bharara could be replaced by the son of a former lawyer for the defendant Prevezon, in the NYC action. But of course nepotism has no relationship to the rule of law, and there are always/never coincidences in the world of crony capitalism and kleptocracies.
According to Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder, a noted Putin critic, Nikolai Gorokhov is in the intensive-care unit of Botkin hospital in Moscow with severe head injuries after allegedly being defenestrated from his building, BBC’s Daniel Sandford reported on Tuesday.
In addition to representing the family of the late Sergei Magnitsky, Gorokhov reportedly served as a witness for ex-U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s separate case probing allegedly corrupt Russian businessmen and officials.
In court filings, the Department of Justice alleges that Prevezon, a Cyprus-based real estate company owned by a Russian national, purchased several New York City apartments with funds linked to a decade-old $230 million tax fraud — the biggest in Russian history — perpetrated by gangsters and corrupt officials.
Trump last week fired — after plenty of drama — Preet Bharara, the high-profile US attorney who was handling the case.
Now prominent New York City defense attorney Marc Mukasey — the son of former US Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who at one point was defending Prevezon — is reportedly on the shortlist to replace Bharara