Both Andrew Intrater and his wife gave a maximum of $5,800 to Santos’ main campaign team and tens of thousands to groups affiliated with him since 2020, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Intrater’s cousin is Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, who was sanctioned by the US government for his role in the Russian energy industry.
The relationship between Santos and Intrater went beyond campaign contributions, according to Santos’ personal statement in 2020, and the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against the Florida-based investment firm the following year. Harbor City is the capitalWhere is Santos? served More than a year.
Taken together, the evidence suggests that Santos may have had a business relationship with Indrator as Santos enters politics for the first time in 2020. The SEC filing also shows Intrater paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Santos’ one-time employer, Harbor City. , which was accused by regulators of running a Ponzi scheme. Neither Santos nor Intrader responded to requests for comment. Lawyers representing Intrater also did not respond.
Congressman, whose Election He apologized for what he called “resume embellishment,” which helped the GOP win its narrow House majority from Long Island last year. The refusal calls for his resignation. He is under investigation by prosecutors in New York and Rio de Janeiro.
The relationship between Santos, 34, and Intrater, 60, reflects the ways in which Santos found personal and political support on his path to public office.
While Intrater is an American citizen, his firm, the investment firm Columbus Nova, has historically had extensive ties to the business interests of his Russian cousin. As recently as 2018, when Vekselberg was cleared by the Treasury Department, the company confirmed to The Post that year that his group was Columbus Nova’s largest customer.
In 2016 and 2017, special counsel Robert S. During Mueller III’s investigation, Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties between Trump and the Kremlin were examined.
Intrater’s company paid the lawyer and Trump fixer to identify contracts for his business, court records show, and they exchanged hundreds of texts and phone calls. Neither Intrater nor Vekselberg have been accused of wrongdoing in Mueller’s investigation.
In 2020, when Santos was tasked by Harbor City with finding investors in New York, he said at a Harbor City meeting held via Zoom that Intrater’s investment firm, Columbus Nova, was his “client,” according to footage obtained by Washington. Mail.
He made the comment during a discussion about the difficulties of residential real estate investing to investors paying for the 1,400-foot tower at 432 Park Avenue in Manhattan, once the world’s tallest residential building. Intrater did not respond to a question about whether he or Columbus were involved in the Nova project.
“You probably know who they are,” Santos told the company’s meeting, referring to Columbus Nova. “They’ve made the news on multiple occasions. They’ve been actively involved in the Russia investigation. Unfair.”
“But they are a real estate company,” Santos added. “They’re legit.”
Santos did not respond to a text message seeking comment. Intratter did not respond to an emailed question about whether he was a client of Santos or made a deposit with Harbor City.
The congressman has falsified substantial aspects of his work experience. And in Harbor City Zoom meetings reviewed by The Post, he described interactions with other major investors or companies that received money that those companies rejected.
But according to an exhibit in the SEC’s complaint against Harbor City, Harbor City was able to obtain a $625,000 deposit from a corporation registered in Mississippi. The undated deposition included a schedule listing several companies the SEC says made payments to Harbor City.
A Mississippi company, FEA Innovations, is registered with Intrater, according to the Secretary of State Records. The registration documents list no other officers or directors and identify the indorser’s address as the same address used by Columbus Nova on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. Columbus Noah is now known as the Sparrow Capital.
In an SEC action initiated in April 2021, regulators Accused Harbor City and its founder run a “classic Ponzi scheme” – promising investors reliable profits and collecting millions in cash in return.
Santos was not named in the SEC complaint refused As The Post previously reported, even if the prospective investor was told the company was using fraudulent bank documentation, he had knowledge of the wrongdoing.
Harbor City’s founder, JP Maroney, has denied the SEC’s allegations brought in federal court in Florida. The company itself did not respond to the court. Maroney did not respond to a text message about the alleged deposit from Intrater’s company. The exhibit identifying the alleged deposit from Intrater’s company did not describe its purpose or state that Intrater was aware of the wrongdoing at Harbor City.
After Harbor City’s assets were frozen, with the help of a fellow former Harbor City employee, Santos created the DeVolter Organization in 2021, which paid him at least $3.5 million over the next two years, according to Florida. Business records And Financial Disclosure Forms He filed as a candidate. Santos loaned his campaign more than $700,000 but reported no income from Harbor City. was paid By the company till April 2021.
Details of Santos’ tenure in Harbor City were confirmed A court-appointed attorney Supervise the liquidation of the company’s assets.
Columbus was interested in Noah Mueller’s investigation as prosecutors probed Intrater and his firm’s ties to Cohen, who was then a Trump confidant.
According to campaign finance records, Intrater donated $250,000 to Trump’s inaugural team and attended the 2017 inauguration with Vekselberg. The Washington Post reported Both met Cohen at the inauguration. Shortly thereafter, Columbus Nova began paying Cohen as part of a deal to recruit new investors, The Post reported. Court records show payments totaling $583,000.
Between November 2016 and November 2017, Cohen and Intrater exchanged over 1,000 calls and text messages, court records show. Intrater donated $35,000 to attend Trump’s 2017 re-election fundraiser at Cohen’s invitation, The Post reported.
Federal authorities questioned both Intrater and Vekselberg during the investigation, interviewing the latter after his private plane was stopped in the United States in 2018, people familiar with the investigation said.
Cohen eventually pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, tax and bank fraud, and lying to Congress — matters unrelated to his dealings with Columbus Nova. Intrator told the New York Times His omission from Mueller’s final report in 2019 “confirms what I know — that I did nothing wrong.”
Cohen later turned on Trump, criticizing him at a 2019 congressional hearing and cooperating with investigations into his former employer’s business practices.
Vekselberg and his company Renova Allowed By the Treasury Department in April 2018, Quoted for benefiting from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “sinister activity around the world”. In April 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vekselberg’s $90 million yacht captured By the Spanish authorities at the request of the United States.
Columbus Nova has long been described as closely associated with the Renova Group, a Russian conglomerate run by Vekselberg. As recently as 2017, a website for Renova Group listed Columbus Nova as one of its companies, and Columbus Nova confirmed to The Post in 2018 that Vekselberg’s group was its largest client at the time. However, the company said the company was owned by Americans and was never controlled by the Renova group or Vekselberg.
Devlin Barrett, Emma Brown and Jonathan O’Connell contributed to this report.
