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Mueller Witness Nader Must Remain in Custody in Child Porn Case

Mueller Witness Nader Must Remain in Custody in Child Porn Case

(Bloomberg) -- Former Trump campaign adviser George Nader failed to win release from federal custody after his arrest this week on charges of transporting pornographic videos involving children.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis in Alexandria, Virginia, on Friday rejected a proposal by Nader’s lawyer to place his client under the supervision of private guards -- paid for by Nader -- and post a $1 million bond to ensure his return to court while he recovers from triple bypass surgery he had last month in Germany.

“The court finds there are no combinations of conditions of release that will reasonably assure the safety of the community,” Davis said at the conclusion of a contentious hourlong hearing. A federal prosecutor recited a litany of criminal allegations against Nader involving child pornography, as well as Nader’s conviction in the Czech Republic for sexual contact with an underage boy.

Nader also pleaded guilty to transporting child pornography in the same Virginia court in 1991.

An adviser to the United Arab Emirates who has ties to that nation’s ruler, Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Zayed, and with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, Nader became enmeshed in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation after arranging a meeting in the Seychelles Islands between Trump campaign surrogate Erik Prince and the head of a Russian sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev.

Nader, 60, faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years imprisonment if convicted on the most recent child-porn allegations. Federal agents seized three of his mobile phones upon his arrival at Dulles International Airport last year, in connection with a warrant in an unrelated matter, according to an FBI affidavit filed in support of the charge against him. That other matter could have been related to the Mueller investigation.

In the course of reviewing the contents on one of those devices, child pornography was found, prompting investigators to obtain a second warrant leading to the discovery of a dozen explicit videos involving children.

At the hearing on Friday, prosecutor Jay Prabhu told the judge that there was also message traffic on the device indicating that Nader had both sent and received some of that content.

Still, defense attorney Christopher Clark argued, Nader was allowed to leave and re-enter the U.S. four times as he was debriefed by the FBI, indicating he may not have been aware of the content on his phone.

“They didn’t move for a year to apprehend him,” Clark said. He also said his client had never failed to appear for any of his other court appearances in other cases.

Davis was unpersuaded, telling the attorney that he had failed to meet the legal burden to prove his client was no danger to the community. The parties are due back in court on Monday for a hearing on whether the charges against Nader can be sustained.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Harris in Washington at aharris16@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, David S. Joachim, Peter Jeffrey

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