Jamison Reed Firestone (born 1966) is an American attorney. Firestone graduated from

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private university, private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into ...

in 1988 and

Tulane Law School Tulane University Law School is the law school of Tulane University. It is located on Tulane's Uptown campus in New Orleans New Orleans ( , , In August 1991, shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union, he moved to

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

and co-founded the law firm Firestone Duncan. He fled Russia in August 2009 following the arrest of his employee

Sergei Magnitsky Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky (russian: Сергeй Леонидович Магнитский, ; 8 April 1972 – 16 November 2009) was a Ukrainian-born Russian tax advisor responsible for exposing corruption and misconduct by Russian gover ...

, who died in prison, after eleven months' incarceration without trial.

Firestone Duncan

Firestone founded the law firm of Firestone Duncan in 1993 in Moscow, with his close friend Terry Michael Duncan. In the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union, the two young men had thought there were business opportunities in Russia, where privatisation efforts were widespread. On October 3, 1993, Terry Duncan was shot and killed by a sniper during the Russian Constitutional Crisis while aiding the wounded at the Ostinkino Television Centre. Local papers reported he had aided twelve wounded Russians and died while trying to rescue American photo journalist Otto Pohl who had been shot twice. Otto Pohl lived and eventually interviewed the man who shot them. In 1994, Firestone Duncan also opened a separate audit practice with two Russian auditors, one of whom was Konstantin Ponomarev. In December 1995 the firm split with Firestone accusing Ponomarev of malfeasance and excluding him, and Ponmarev accusing Firestone of stealing his company. Subsequently, Ponomarev went on to make the Forbes Russia list through a single settlement with IKEA of almost US$1 billion, widely reported as legalised extortion. In 2017 Ponomarev was arrested and imprisoned pending trial on charges of fraud.

The Magnitsky Affair

One of Firestone Duncan's employees was a Russian accountant and auditor Sergei Magnitsky. Among the companies that Firestone Duncan represented was

Hermitage Capital Management Hermitage Capital Management is an investment fund and asset management company specializing in Russian markets founded by Bill Browder and Edmond Safra. Chief operating officer is Ivan Cherkasov. Hermitage Capital Management headquarters are in ...

, co-founded by American-British financier

Bill Browder William Felix Browder (born April 23, 1964) is an American-born British financier and political activist. He is the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management, the investment advisor to the Hermitage Fund, which at one time was the large ...

. Magnitsky began to investigate what he alleged was a massive tax fraud scheme, whereby criminals obtained control of three companies managed by Hermitage Fund and arranged a fraudulent refund of $230 million from the Russian treasury. Magnitsky testified against the alleged criminals and officials involved, and was subsequently arrested by Russian police in 2008. He died in 2009 eleven months later while in police custody, prior to ever going to trial. According to the Russian President's Council on Human Rights, the prison had created deadly conditions which destroyed Magnitsky's health, and then denied him medical treatment. When Magnitsky's health broke and he was in need of immediate surgery, officials handcuffed him to a bed, beat him with rubber batons and locked him in his cell, leaving him there until he was dead.

Lobbying for the Magnitsky Sanctions worldwide

Following Magnitsky's death in prison, Firestone became one of the chief advocates of United States passage of the

Magnitsky Act The Magnitsky Act, formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson–Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, is a bipartisan bill passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in D ...

of 2012, which sanctioned Russian officials believed to have been responsible for the death of Magnitsky and officials who used their powers to attack human rights defenders, journalists and anti corruption activists. It prevented their entry into the US and subjected their US assets to forfeiture. Firestone published videos on YouTube attracting several million views (as of July 2016) that outlined Magnitsky's allegations against Russian officials, demonstrated how these officials knew each other, and showed that they had acquired assets in excess of $50 million around the time of the crime Magnitsky exposed. The source for the information in one of these videos was

Alexander Perepilichny Alexander Yurevich Perepilichny (russian: Алекса́ндр Ю́рьевич Перепеличный; 15 July 1968 – 10 November 2012) was a Russian businessman and whistleblower who died, while jogging near London in 2012, after leaving Ru ...

, a business associate of the Russian tax officials who passed Firestone documents in the Polo Bar of the Westbury hotel in London specifically for the purpose of exposing the officials. Mr. Perepilichny later died under mysterious circumstances in

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

and his death is currently the subject of an official inquest in the UK. For five years after the death of Magnitsky in 2009, Firestone contributed and featured in articles in ''

The Moscow Times ''The Moscow Times'' is an independent English-language and Russian-language online newspaper. It was in print in Russia from 1992 until 2017 and was distributed free of charge at places frequented by English-speaking tourists and expatriates s ...

Foreign Policy A State (polity), state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterall ...

The Lawyer ''The Lawyer'' is a legal business information product for law firm leaders, commercial lawyers, barristers and in-house counsel. It is based in London. History and profile ''The Lawyer'' was launched in 1987 by Centaur Media plc. It publ ...

,'' and other publications, in continued protest against the Russian government's perceived lack of action in response to the death of Magnitsky, and encouraging various countries to adopt Magnitsky Sanctions. Magnitsky Sanctions have now been adopted by the United States, Estonia, Canada, and partially by the United Kingdom.

Involvement in ''United States v. Prevezon Holdings''

In May 2017, Firestone was scheduled to testify on behalf of the US Government in United States v. Prevezon Holdings Ltd. Prevezon's attorney was

Louis Freeh Louis Joseph Freeh (born January 6, 1950) is an American attorney and former judge who served as the fifth Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from September 1993 to June 2001. Graduated from Rutgers University and New York Universi ...

. Prevezon Holdings which was a Cypriot company owned by

Denis Katsyv Denis Katsyv is a Ukrainian Russian and Israeli businessman based in Moscow and owner of Prevezon Holdings Limited. He was linked in a Civil forfeiture in the United States, civil-assets case to money laundering through real estate investments in th ...

, the son of Pyotr Katsyv (russian: Кацыв Пётр Дмитриевич), a Russian official). which the US government alleged had received some of the money from the fraud uncovered by Magnitsky. The case was originally brought by US attorney

Preet Bharara Preetinder Singh Bharara (; born October 13, 1968) is an Indian-born American lawyer, author, podcaster and former federal prosecutor who served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. He is current ...

. Before the case could come to trial, President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

fired Preet Bharara, and, in May 2017, Prevezon agreed to pay a fine of $5.9 million to settle with United States federal prosecutors headed by

Joon Kim Joon Hyun Kim (born May 26, 1971) is an American attorney who served as the acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from March 2017 to January 2018. He was Deputy U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York fr ...

, who was appointed by

Jeff Sessions Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (born December 24, 1946) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 84th United States Attorney General from 2017 to 2018. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as United State ...

as the acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York from March 2017 to January 2018. In November 2017, Prevezon stated that it would pay the fine using money from

AFI Europe AFI Europe is a real estate development and investment company operating in several main cities in Central and Eastern Europe. AFI Europe predominantly focuses on the development of large scale residential and commercial projects, and is part of th ...

which is a subsidiary of Lev Leviev's

Africa Israel Investments Africa Israel Investments Ltd. (AFI Group) is an international holding and investment company based in Yehud, Israel. The group consists of several private and public companies active in areas such as real estate, construction, infrastructure, m ...

. The case and players were highlighted again when reporters noted that

Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Vladimirovna Veselnitskaya ( rus, Ната́лья Влади́мировна Весельни́цкая, p=nɐˈtalʲjə vʲɪsʲɪlʲˈnʲitskəjə; born 22 February 1975 Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union) is a R ...

, a Russian lawyer who had represented Prevezon, had met with

Donald Trump Jr Donald John Trump Jr. (born December 31, 1977) is an American political activist, businessman, author, and former television presenter. He is the eldest child of Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021, and his firs ...

, in 2016 during his father's presidential campaign. Veselnitskaya was said to have lobbied for the removal of

sanctions against Russian nationals in exchange for providing compromising information about

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...

, a fact President Trump personally denied in a statement drafted aboard

Air Force One Air Force One is the official air traffic control designated call sign for a United States Air Force aircraft carrying the president of the United States. In common parlance, the term is used to denote U.S. Air Force aircraft modified and used ...

. In April 2016,

Dana Rohrabacher Dana Tyrone Rohrabacher (; born June 21, 1947) is a former American politician who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 to 2019. A Republican, he represented for the last three terms of his House tenure. Rohrabacher ran for re- ...

and Paul Behrends, who is a member of his staff, traveled to Russia and returned with Yuri Chaika's confidential talking points memo about incriminating information on Democratic donors which were later discussed in the

Trump Tower meeting Trump most commonly refers to: * Donald Trump (born 1946), 45th president of the United States (2017–2021) * Trump (card games), any playing card given an ad-hoc high rank Trump may also refer to: Businesses and organizations * Donald J. T ...

on June 9, 2016. According to Vesinitskaya, the Ziff Brothers Investments, who have Russian investments with

, failed to properly pay their taxes in Russia. In July 2018, it was revealed that Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was reportedly willing to testify in front of

special counsel In the United States, a special counsel (formerly called special prosecutor or independent counsel) is a lawyer appointed to investigate, and potentially prosecute, a particular case of suspected wrongdoing for which a conflict of interest exist ...

Robert Mueller Robert Swan Mueller III (; born August 7, 1944) is an American lawyer and government official who served as the sixth director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2001 to 2013. A graduate of Princeton University and New York ...

that Trump knew about the meeting before it took place, directly contradicting the President's claims.

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Firestone, Jamison 2010 in Russia American lawyers 1966 births Living people