A political hobnobber who featured prominently as a key witness in former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation faces at least a decade in prison after pleading guilty to charges of child sex trafficking and possessing child pornography.
Lebanese-American businessman George Nader, 60, entered a plea deal Monday in federal court in Alexandria, Va., admitting to transporting a 14-year-old boy from the Czech Republic to Washington, D.C., in 2000 to engage in sexual activity with him. He also admitted to possessing child pornography depicting infants or toddlers.
Nader is still separately under indictment in Washington along with seven others on charges of conspiring to conceal the source of more than $3.5 million in political donations to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign. Nader allegedly was reporting to an unnamed Middle Eastern government on that operation, which was intended to curry favor with Clinton, prosecutors in that case said.
In the meantime, the pornography charge itself carries a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence. Prosecutors agreed as part of the plea bargain to recommend a 10-year sentence when Nader is sentenced April 10, although the judge will be free to impose a significantly longer sentence of up to 30 years if she chooses. – READ MORE