Attorney pleads guilty to aiding sanctioned Russian oligarch

A New York attorney faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to making payments to maintain U.S. properties secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch.

Robert Wise was retained by Vladimir Voronchenko—an associate of Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch sanctioned by the United States in April 2018—to acquire luxury properties in the United States, according an information filed Tuesday by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in the Southern District of New York.

Between 2008 and 2017, Vekselberg obtained the properties by going through shell companies. Wise managed their finances, including paying insurance and property taxes, the DOJ said. The payments for the properties were taken from interest earned on Wise’s lawyer’s trust account, also called an IOLTA account.