WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th April, 2019) Russian national Maria Butina who is detained in the United States on conspiracy to act as an unregistered foreign agent hopes to meet her family in Russia before the end of Orthodox Easter on May 5, Russian priest Viktor Potapov told Sputnik after visiting her in prison.
Butina, who reached a plea deal with US authorities in December, has a sentencing hearing scheduled for next Friday, April 26. Orthodox Easter begins April 28 and continues until St. Thomas Sunday, or Antipascha, on May 5.
"The Orthodox Church celebrates Easter the whole week and Maria hopes to see her family before Easter is over. She wants to return to Russia as soon as possible," Potapov, who spent two hours with Butina on Friday, said. "Maria is very hopeful that she will be released on Orthodox Good Friday, but she is very fearful that the prosecution might demand more than the time served."
The priest suggested that Butina, if she is released next Friday, most likely will not be deported the same day.
In March, Butina's defense attorneys and US prosecutors in a joint filing requested that she be deported immediately upon her sentencing on April 26.
Butina, who initially denied the charges against her, agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to act as an unregistered foreign agent and cooperate with the prosecution in exchange for a lighter sentence.
The plea document signed by the Russian national said that Butina conspired with a "Russian government official," who had served as the deputy governor to the Russian Central Bank since at least 2015, and at least one other person. According to the original plea agreement, she could have faced a maximum sentence of up to five years.
Butina was arrested in mid-July of last year and imprisoned in Washington, DC before being transferred to a detention center in Alexandria, Virginia.
In November, the Russian Embassy in the United States said US authorities kept Butina in a single cell under solitary confinement for 67 days, exceeding the limit recommended by the Nelson Mandela Rules for the treatment of prisoners. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Butina's indictment was unjustified because she was not charged with any mission on behalf of the Russian government.
