(NewsNation) — A grand jury in Tampa, Florida, has indicted seven individuals on charges of running a foreign influence campaign to sow discord and spread pro-Russian propaganda within the United States.
The four U.S. citizens and three Russian nationals are charged with working on behalf of the Russian government and Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) to conduct a foreign malign influence campaign in the U.S. That includes recruiting, funding and directing U.S political groups to act as unregistered agents of the Russian government to spread pro-Russia propaganda.
“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights — freedoms Russia denies its own citizens — to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “The department will not hesitate to expose and prosecute those who sow discord and corrupt U.S. elections in service of hostile foreign interests, regardless of whether the culprits are U.S. citizens or foreign individuals abroad.”
The indictment named Russian nationals Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, Aleksey Borisovich Sukhodolov and Yegor Sergeyevich Popov, along with American citizens Omali Yeshitela, Penny Joanne Hess, Jesse Nevel and Augustus C. Romain Jr., also known as Gazi Kodzo.
The indictment alleges Ionov, Sukhodolov and Popov conspired to influence democratic elections in the U.S. by clandestinely funding and directing the campaign of a candidate for local office in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Prosecutors say Ionov also ran a yearslong influence campaign that included recruiting members of political groups, including the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement in Florida, the Black Hammer Party in Georgia and a political group in California.
One goal of the influence campaign was to create the appearance of popular support for Russia’s annexation of territories and subsequent invasion of Ukraine.
All the indicted individuals are charged with conspiring to have U.S. citizens act as illegal agents of the Russian government, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Yeshitela, Hess and Nevel are also charged with acting as Russian agents without prior notification, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.
In a separate case unsealed in Washington, D.C., Russian national Natalia Burlinova is alleged to have conspired with an FSB officer to recruit U.S. citizens to take part in a public diplomacy program, through which she gathered information on participants and identified people who might be willing to collaborate. Burlinova did not inform the attorney general of her efforts or publicly disclose that her work was funded by the FSB.