A key witness in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation was sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday for bringing a teenage boy to the United States for sex and possessing child pornography.
George Nader, a lobbyist whose name appears more than 100 times in Mr. Mueller’s report on Russian election interference, pleaded guilty in January to both charges. He was sentenced to 10 years on each charge, but a federal judge said the sentences could be served concurrently.
Search warrants unsealed last year revealed the FBI discovered at least a dozen child pornography videos on the phone of Nader, 61. Some of the images involved animals and boys as young as 2 years old.
Nader was also accused of bringing a 14-year-old boy from the Czech Republic to his D.C. home in 2000, and using him for sex. In 2003, Czech authorities convicted Nader of molesting underage boys between 1999 and 2002.
When U.S. authorities learned of the 14-year-old Czech boy, Nader fled the country.
In addition to the prison sentence, Nader was also ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution to the Czech boy. That boy called into Nader’s sentencing hearing which was held in an Alexandria, Virginia, federal court and his statement was translated into English by a translator.
This is not the first time Nader had pleaded guilty to a federal pornography charge. In 1991, he was sentenced to six months in prison after two reels of videotape hidden in candy tins were discovered in his luggage when he arrived at a D.C. airport.
Nader met with U.S. officials and close associates of President Trump along with Russian and Middle Eastern officials in 2016 and 2017. He arranged a January 2017 meeting in Seychelles between Blackwater founder Erik Prince, a Trump associate, and a Russian official with close ties to Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Mueller’s team questioned Nader about alleged attempts by the United Arab Emirates to influence members of Trump’s campaign.
Nader was separately indicted by prosecutors in late 2019 for allegedly conspiring to conceal illegal campaign donations to the campaign of Hillary Clinton ahead of the 2016 election.
Prosecutors say Nader and Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja, a Los Angeles-based executive, schemed to conceal more than $3.5 million in contributions from political committees to gain influence.
A 53-count indictment unsealed was unsealed in November. Nader has pleaded not guilty in the case.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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