Days after Butina was arrested in July, Assistant US Attorney Erik M. Kenerson claimed she was offering an individual \u201csex in exchange for a position within a special interest organization.\u201d<\/em> The claim, which caused a storm in the mainstream media, has been disputed by her defense attorney Robert Driscoll.<\/p>\n However, in a filing on Friday, prosecutors in the US attorney\u2019s office in Washington, including Kenerson, stressed that the July allegation \u201cwas based both on a series of text messages between the defendant and another individual.\u201d<\/em> They admitted <\/a>that the \u201cgovernment\u2019s understanding of this particular text conversation was mistaken.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Read more<\/p>\n Commenting on the Friday filing, Driscoll said that the US government has \u201cenormous power to destroy lives and reputations through the criminal process.\u201d<\/em> \u201cThis is an unfortunate example of the misuse of that power. I\u2019m glad the false allegation has been acknowledged, but it\u2019s a hard bell to unring,\u201d he told <\/a>the Washington Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n Butina, a Russian national lobbying for looser gun controls in her home country, moved to the US on a student visa in 2016. She graduated from American University in Washington DC with a master\u2019s degree in international relations earlier this year. In July, she was arrested on charges of acting as a foreign agent without registering with the US government.<\/p>\n In August, Butina was unexpectedly transferred to another prison. According to the Russian embassy, which repeatedly described the arrest as politically motivated, Butina\u2019s current conditions border on torture. \u201cWe have more and more questions for the US justice system,\u201d<\/em> the embassy said <\/a>at the time. \u201cShould allegations pressed against Maria before the actual trial condemn her to practices that are slightly below torture?\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n The embassy previously complained that Butina is being subjected to unwarranted strip searches and denied proper medical care, all in an attempt to \u201cbreak her will.\u201d<\/em> Driscoll also confirmed to RT that she was experiencing health problems in jail, bus has been deprived proper treatment.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Not a spy novel: Butina\u2019s lawyer reminds public that client isn\u2019t charged with espionage (VIDEO)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Butina\u2019s charges make her case quite unusual, Driscoll believes, as the law basically makes otherwise legal actions of an individual prosecutable. \u201cThere\u2019s no allegation of espionage, there\u2019s no allegation of classified information, there\u2019s no allegation she was paying anyone off, there\u2019s no allegation she was recruiting spies. None of the things you would typically see in an espionage case,\u201d<\/em> he told <\/a>RT back in August.<\/p>\n Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" US prosecutors have admitted that they wrongly accused Maria Butina, the Russian gun activist jailed in the US on charges of being an unregistered \u201cforeign agent,\u201d of offering sex in exchange for a job. Days after Butina was arrested in July, Assistant US Attorney Erik M. Kenerson claimed she was offering an individual \u201csex in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":371919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-376662","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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