Mueller probe witness pleads guilty to child sex charges

A man who was thought to be a key witness in the “Trump-Russia Collusion” investigation by both Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating President Donald Trump, is headed to federal prison for crimes committed that are separate from the Trump impeachment case.

The 60-year-old Lebanese-American businessman George Nader entered a plea deal Monday in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. He is expected to be sentenced to a prison term of at least 10-years after he pleaded guilty to a number of charges of child sex offenses and possessing “kiddie porn” material.

For example, according to sex crimes unit detective Helen Burgos, Nader admitted he transported a victim, a 14-year-old boy from the Czech Republic to Washington, D.C., in 2000 and proceeded to engage in a sexual relationship with him. That young boy is now 33-years-old.

Nader also admitted possessing child pornography depicting infants or toddlers in sexual poses.

The pornography charge requires a 10-year mandatory minimum prison sentence. The prosecution team agreed as part of Nader’s bargain to recommend a 10-year sentence when Nader is sentenced in April 2020. However, the presiding judge is allowed to impose a significantly longer sentence if she chooses based on the severity of the treatment of the children by Nader..

Nader is also under indictment in Washington, D.C., along with seven other suspects on charges of conspiring to conceal the source of more than $3.5 million in political donations to Hillary Clinton’s campaign as well as contributions to the Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charity known as the Clinton Foundation, which used the organization to pay their past and present employees.

Nader previously served as an adviser to the United Arab Emirates as a result of his fluency in Arabic and Farsi.

In the past, Nader was convicted in the Czech Republic on charges stemming from 10 cases of sexually abusing minors and sentenced to a one-year prison term in 2003. “I find it repulsive for a government to allow this kind of treatment by sexual predator by a judge’s lack of morality. I guess the United States is taking Nader’s crimes more seriously

The identity-protected 14-year-old boy who was the victim in Monday’s guilty plea is a different victim than the others Nader also pleaded guilty to a charge of transporting child-pornography images in Virginia in 1991.

The current investigation of Nader began in 2018 when images depicting child pornography and bestiality were found on his cell phone after it was confiscated under a search warrant connected to the Mueller probe.

The images found in Nader’s phones at Dulles International Airport ended up not being the basis for Monday’s child-pornography conviction. Instead, prosecutors relied on images and videos he received via email in 2012 that in some cases involved sadistic depictions of infants or toddlers, according to disclosures at Monday’s hearing.

In court papers filed Monday, Nader admitted that he discussed child pornography online over the years with an unidentified associated, using the word “wine” as a substitute for child pornography to conceal the nature of the conversations. the two had also worked out a code to add 10 years to the age of persons they referred to in their conversations.

While Nader admitted to transporting the Czech boy to the U.S. for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity, he argues that it happened too long ago to be prosecuted under the statute of limitations, and his plea deal preserves his right to appeal his conviction on that count on those grounds. Even if such an appeal were granted, he would still be subject to a mandatory 10 years on the pornography charge.