"I destroyed my own life"

Maria Butina, who admitted to conspiring to serve as a secret Russian agent and seduced conservative US leaders with her gun-respect activism, was sentenced to 18 months by a federal judge on Friday.

Judge Tanya Chutkan's sentence corresponds to what the Justice Ministry asked Butina, although she is serving a sentence of more than nine months, thanks to the time already spent in prison. "The behavior was sophisticated and penetrated deeply into American political organizations," said Chutkan before pronouncing the severe sentence.

Butina is a 30-year-old Russian national who came to the United States to study at the American University in Washington, DC, and courted gun and conservative law activists, particularly at the National Rifle Association. She was arrested last July and accused of violating an American law prohibiting people from acting as foreign agents without telling the Attorney General. government.

Just before her conviction, Butina appealed for clemency. Her voice trembled when she spoke.

"My parents discovered my arrest at the morning news that they are looking at their rural home in a Siberian village," she said. "I love them very much, but I hurt them morally and financially. They suffer from all this. I've destroyed my own life too. I came to the United States without order, but with hope, and now there is only penance. "

During her stay in the United States, Butina spoke to Alexander Torshin, an official at the Central Bank of Russia, about her efforts to establish relations with the Americans. In one case, she claimed to have an influence on Trump's future secretary of state. In December 2015, she even helped a delegation of ANR leaders to go to Moscow, where they met influential figures of the Russian government.

Butina said she would have registered as a foreign agent with the Department of Justice, but she said she did not know American law.

"I deeply regret this crime, not only because it has wronged me, my beloved friends and my darling family, but, paradoxically, at my attempts to improve relations." between the two countries, "she said.

Chutkan had none.

"It was not a simple misunderstanding on the part of an excessive foreign student," said Chutkan, saying the crime committed by Butina was "serious and endangering the national security of the country."

Erik Kenerson, the prosecutor in charge of the case, told Chutkan that Butina was executing a plan to establish contact between the two governments, for the benefit of Russia. The information was "of utmost importance for the Russian Federation," he said.

"There is no doubt that she was not just a graduate student," he said.

"His conduct shows how easy it can be for a foreign government to target Americans in the United States," he added.

One of his lawyers, Alfred Carry, rejected Kenerson's argument.

"Maria is not a spy," he says. "She is not an intelligence. She has never been employed by the Russian government. She does not know secret codes, shelters, illegals. She never engaged in secret activities and she never lied to our government. "

During her stay in the United States, Butina also formed a romantic relationship with Paul Erickson, a longtime Conservative insider who helped her to become friends with the NRA people. Erickson was charged this year in South Dakota for several financial crimes, none of which concerned Butina or Russia.

This sentence marks the end of a two-year saga that rivaled Washington and embodies tensions between the United States and Russia following Moscow's interference in the 2016 elections.

The Ministry of Justice has asked Butina to be sentenced to 18 months. Butina asked the judge to sentence her to the sentence where she has already served her sentence.

Butina said she had been cooperating extensively with federal investigators since she pleaded guilty last December. And she said that after her plea, her future was dark.

"I have three degrees, but now I am a convicted criminal without work, without money and without freedom," she said. "My reputation is ruined, in the United States and abroad. And even though I know I'm not that perverse person described in the media, I'm responsible for those consequences. "

Butina will be sent back to Russia after being released from prison.

"I always keep a whisper in my heart to return to this country someday," she added, "but I know this wish is only a dream."