Washington (Sputnik) – the team of lawyers of Russian citizen Evgeny Nikulin, accused U.S. authorities of hacking into American campaigns in social media like LinkedIn, is not planning to offer a deal in the case and instead of waiting for the U.S. government to make an offer, Nikulin’s lawyer Arkady Bukh told Sputnik.
“It’s not right that we think about putting the agreement on the admission of guilt. We always try to see that the government side is going to offer. On this basis, we consider that it is better for our customers,” said Buch on Monday.
The lawyer said that he will meet with Nikulin on Tuesday morning and hold a conference with prosecutors after the meeting. The lawyer said that his main goal at this stage of the case “to determine psychological conditions Nikulina, because he’s too uptight”.
“At this time, we do not have the [plea] offer, this is only the beginning of the case. We expect that we will learn a few terabytes of data. This is a huge amount of material,” said Boo.
Such cases can drag on for years, ‘ said Boo. “Sometimes a plea of guilty may be better than waiting until the completion of the judicial process,” he added.
Bukh believes that the government could submit a proposal within the next few months. But the solution on offer is likely to be possible only after or during the discovery phase of the trial, he said.
The lawyer suggested that his client is not facing a “terrible” punishment.
“We have a few articles from 5 to 10 years. In this case, we do not see large numbers of victims, so we do not expect the huge size of the transaction. However, this is a very preliminary assessment,” he said.
Nikulin was arrested in the Czech Republic according to the order of the United States in October 2016 for allegedly hacking into computers belonging to LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring online services. He was extradited to the United States on March 29.
The Russian Embassy in the US said that it was an official notification from the US State Department for his extradition. The Russian foreign Ministry said that Moscow is outraged by the decision of the Czech Republic to issue the approval.
Nikulin was accused of fraud in the Internet in Russia in 2009. Moscow and Washington both by request the results of Nikulin on the same day. A Czech court has ruled that both requests were legal, leaving the decision of the Minister of justice Robert Pelikan, who granted the request of the United States.
Initially, Nikulin has pleaded not guilty to U.S. charges against him, including conspiracy, cyber-attacks and aggravated theft.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
