2016 ELECTION/LAWSUIT/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “A Soviet-born convicted felon who worked on real estate deals with President Donald Trump was accused in a lawsuit Monday [3-25-19] of plotting to use Trump-branded skyscrapers to launder money allegedly stolen from a Kazakhstan bank. BTA Bank and the city of Almaty, Kazakhstan, allege Felix Sater conspired with the son of the city’s former mayor to use some of the $440 million to develop a Trump Tower in Moscow. Sater, who was due to testify before Congress this week about his work with Trump, started pushing the Moscow project in 2005 and tried to kick-start it during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, but it was never built. The bank also alleges Sater helped the mayor’s son, Ilyas Khrapunov, mask $3 million as down payments on three condominiums in Trump SoHo, a New York City hotel Sater helped develop as an executive at Bayrock Group LLC. Sater arranged for Trump and Khrapunov to meet and discuss potential investments, the lawsuit said, avoiding any suggestion that Trump engaged in impropriety or that he was aware Sater and Khrapunov allegedly stole money. Sater’s lawyer said Tuesday in a written statement that the bank had hired a Sater-owned company to recover some of the assets and that the lawsuit is ‘cheap and desperate retaliation’ after that company sued over an unpaid bill.”
–Michael R. Sisak, “Trump Investigations-Sater-Lawsuit Story,” The New York Times online, March 26, 2019