By Cara Salvatore

Law360 (April 15, 2020, 10:35 PM EDT) -- A Manhattan federal judge on Wednesday rescheduled for 2021 the campaign-finance trial of Rudy Giuliani associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, as well as two others, after hearing of challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic, including prosecutors' inability to seek a superseding indictment from a grand jury.

U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken agreed to move the three-week trial from October to February. Parnas and Fruman, former associates of President Donald Trump's lawyer, Giuliani, are accused of pumping Russian money into the U.S. political system in violation of campaign finance laws.

Judge Oetken set a trial date of Feb. 1, with pretrial motions now due Oct. 5. Those motions had previously been due May 1, an issue prosecutors had cited when they wrote to Judge Oetken in a joint request with defense lawyers to push back the trial because of the pandemic.

Prosecutors' "timeline for seeking a superseding indictment has been pushed back due to issues involving the availability of witnesses and grand jurors," they wrote Tuesday.

"Defense counsel has likewise noted that their ability to meet with their clients, review discovery, and prepare their defense has been hampered."

A representative for Fruman and a representative for the U.S. attorney's office declined to comment. Representatives for the other parties were not immediately available for comment.

Prosecutors say Parnas and Fruman unlawfully funneled Russian money into the U.S. political system, including a $325,000 donation to a Trump political committee called America First Action. The source of that money has not been disclosed, but the Parnas family once had ties to Russian businessman Dmytro Firtash, according to statements made before Judge Oetken.

Parnas, Fruman and two others, David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin, are also charged with unlawfully donating to the campaign of Wesley Duncan, a former Republican candidate for Nevada attorney general.

That money was allegedly tied to a larger scheme to use donations to boost a Russian businessman's plan to establish a U.S. presence for his cannabis businesses. News organizations including Mother Jones and McClatchy have identified the cannabis investor as Russian Andrey Muraviev.

The exact extent of Correia's ties to Giuliani is not fully understood. Correia and Parnas are said to have paid Giuliani, through his consulting firm Giuliani Partners, $500,000 in 2018 to help them grow a fraud insurance company called Fraud Guarantee, according to a letter published last year by the Wall Street Journal.

Parnas and Fruman pled not guilty in October, days after Correia and Kukushkin had done the same.

Earlier this month, Correia cited attorney-client privilege in asking a judge to block prosecutors from using evidence found in a package he tried to send his lawyer.

Correia intended to send two notebooks, a hard drive, a computer and a smartphone via DHL to lawyer Jeff Marcus in Miami in the fall of 2019, around the time he was criminally charged, but the package was intercepted and searched by the government, Correia's counsel said.

The U.S. is represented by Rebekah Donaleski, Nicolas Roos and Doug Zolkind of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

Correia is represented by Bill Harrington of Goodwin Procter LLP and Jeff Marcus of Marcus Neiman & Rashbaum LLP. Parnas is represented by Law Offices of Joseph Bondy. Fruman is represented by Todd Blanche of Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP. Kukushkin is represented by Gerald B. Lefcourt PC.

The case is U.S. v. Parnas et al., case number 1:19-cr-00725, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

--Additional reporting by Pete Brush and Jody Godoy. Editing by Peter Rozovsky.

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