By Brooke Singman, Jake Gibson| Fox News
Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan, the son-in-law of
Russian oligarch German Kahn, was sentenced Tuesday to 30 days in prison and
must pay a $20,000 fine for lying to federal investigators about his contacts
with senior Trump campaign official Rick Gates as part of Special Counsel
Robert Mueller's probe.
Van der Zwaan, 33, received the first sentence in
Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling and potential collusion with
Trump campaign associates during the 2016 presidential election.
“What I did was wrong. I apologize to my wife and my
family,” van der Zwaan said in court Tuesday prior to receiving his sentence
from Judge Amy Berman Jackson in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. “I
await your judgment.”
Jackson sentenced van der Zwaan to 30 days in prison, the
$20,000 fine and two months of supervised release.
“We’re not talking about a traffic ticket,” Jackson said.
“This was lying to a federal officer in connection with an investigation.”
Jackson said she would allow Van der Zwaan to collec this
passport and return home to London, following his prison sentence. But it is
unclear at this point whether Van der Zwaan will be forced into Immigration
Customs Enforcement (ICE) proceedings, which could delay him from leaving the
country.
Jackson seemed to have little sympathy for the argument
that Van der Zwaan needed to return to his wife, who is pregnant, citing the
family’s considerable wealth.
“This glass was dropped on a very thick carpet and it has
cushioned the blow,” Jackson said.
Van der Zwaan was charged by Mueller’s team with making
false statements to investigators in an interview about his time working for a
law firm hired by the Ukraine Ministry of Justice in 2012, when he helped
produce a report on the trail of Ukrainian politician Yulia Tymoshenko.
Van der Zwaan is accused of lying about his last
communication with former Trump campaign adviser Rick Gates, who was indicted
in October along with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on charges
related to their work in Ukraine.
The court document notes that van der Zwaan said he “did
not know why an email between him and Person A in September 2016 was not
produced to the Special Counsel’s Office” and that his last communication with
Gates was in August 2016. It also says he claimed that his last communication
with an unidentified “Person A” was in 2014.
But Mueller's team said that van der Zwaan spoke with
Gates and Person A in September 2016, and that he deleted "and otherwise
did not produce emails" sought by Mueller’s office -- including an email
between him and “Person A” in September 2016.
Fox
News' Adam Shaw contributed to this report.
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READER’S COMMENTS:
EXTRA,
extra. The Mueller circus first sentence. A smiling Dutch Attorney was
sentenced to... tra la la ...30 days in jail for lying to the Obama FBI...
Earth shaking. I heard of stiffer sentences for jaywalking.. . It took only
about two years and tens of millions. General Flint will not face charges.
Carter Page is free. Manafort may have to pay fines and taxes. The DoJ IG and
the Federal judge will likely cause the nailing of Obama and his jolly crew
including Clinton for some 15 to 20 years each.
