Russian Student Sentenced to 18 Months in Prison for ‘Conspiracy’ to Promote Gun Rights
Shane Trejo
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Russia national Maria Butina will serve 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to federal conspiracy charges for promoting gun rights in America and attempting to build goodwill between the two countries.
In what may have been the most heinous injustice of the entire Robert Mueller debacle, Butina was tied to the NRA by liberal operatives and framed by the press as a Russian spy of sorts for being a foreign student and supporting the 2nd Amendment.
Politically-motivated judges and federal bureaucrats were determined to make an example of her, even if it further damages relations with Russia and brings the two nations closer to war.
“This was no simple misunderstanding by an overeager foreign student,” said Judge Tanya Chutkan, who was appointed to the bench by former President Barack Hussein Obama.
Butina, who was a student at American University in Washington D.C. before she was targeted by the Mueller witch hunt, was called “sophisticated” and “dangerous” by the liberal activist judge.
“The conduct was sophisticated and penetrated deep into political organizations,” Chutkan said of Butina’s promotion of core U.S. freedoms as a student.
Butina was forced to grovel before the court as she prepared herself for her prison sentence.
“I deeply regret this crime,” Butina said. “Ironically it has harmed my attempts to improve relationships between the two countries.”
“I came to the US not under orders but with hope,” Butina said. “I sought to build bridges between my motherland and the country that I grew to love.”
“Never did I wish to hurt anyone,” Butina said.
Prosecutors admitted that Butina was not really involved in espionage, but they decided to pursue her as a criminal anyway. She will receive credit for time served, having been incarcerated since July 2018. She will be deported back to Russia after finishing the final six months of her sentence.
Reports have indicated that Butina was tortured while incarcerated in order to get her to break so a guilty plea could be secured:
Russia accused the United States of trying to break the spirit in jail of Maria Butina, a woman U.S. authorities say is a Russian government agent, and complained she was being subjected to “borderline torture.”
Butina, a 29-year-old gun rights advocate living in Washington, D.C., was arrested in July and has been accused of acting as a Russian government agent while developing ties with American citizens and infiltrating political groups…
She had been subjected to a strip search and shackled during the transfer, it alleged, before being held in a cell for 12 hours without food and with the lights on. She now faced a solitary confinement regime, it said.
“Her situation is getting worse. It’s obvious that attempts are being made to ‘break’ Maria using additional humiliation and psychological pressure,” the [Russian] embassy said.
“We have more and more questions for the U.S. justice system. Should Maria really be doomed to suffer such borderline torture before a court verdict on the allegations against her? This lawlessness must stop.”
U.S. federal prosecutors successfully persuaded a judge in July that Butina was a flight risk and should be jailed prior to her trial.
Despite her tremendous mistreatment by the system, Butina remains enthusiastic about U.S. Constitutional liberty and hopes to return to the country someday.
“I still hold a whisper in my heart to one day return to this country, but I know this wish is only a dream,” she said.
Butina’s dream will likely never come true, as Democrats work incessantly abusing institutional power to drive wedges in between Russia and the U.S. to sabotage Trump’s agenda.
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