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LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A former FBI informant charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden's family must remain behind bars while he awaits trial, a judge ruled Monday, reversing an earlier order releasing the man.
U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II in Los Angeles ordered Alexander Smirnov's detention days after he was freed by another judge, then re-arrested while meeting with his lawyers at their offices in Las Vegas. Wright said he did not believe there were release conditions he could set that would guarantee that the man who has claimed to have ties to Russian intelligence would not flee the country.
"There is nothing garden variety about this case," Wright said. "I have not changed my mind. This man will be remanded pending trial."
Smirnov, 43, pleaded not guilty to the charges accusing him of falsely telling his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid President Biden and Hunter Biden $5 million each around 2015. The claim became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry of President Biden in Congress.
A different judge had released him from jail on electronic GPS monitoring after his Feb. 14 arrest, but Wright ordered him to be taken back into custody last week after prosecutors asked to reconsider Smirnov's detention. Wright said in a written order unsealed Friday that Smirnov's lawyers' efforts to free him were "likely to facilitate his absconding from the United States."
In urging the judge to keep him in jail, prosecutors revealed Smirnov has reported to the FBI having extensive contact with officials associated with Russian intelligence, and claimed that such officials were involved in passing a story to him about Hunter Biden. Prosecutors said Smirnov had been planning to travel to multiple countries days after his Feb. 14 arrest to meet with foreign intelligence contacts.
Prosecutor Leo Wise told the judge Monday that Smirnov could not be trusted to tell the truth to those monitoring his whereabouts if released from jail, noting that he was pushing a new false story about Hunter Biden during a meeting with investigators as recently as September. Prosecutors have accused Smirnov in court papers of "actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections."