U.S. charges 4 Americans involved in Russian election discord case

An indictment was unsealed Tuesday charging four Americans and three Russians with covertly attempting to sow discord in U.S. society through Russian propaganda and interfering in elections.

The Americans, and two of the Russians, were added to an already ongoing case in a Tampa, Fla. federal court.

The existing case involves Aleksandr Ionov, the alleged founder of a Moscow-based organization designed to carry out a secret influence campaign in the U.S., funded by the Russian government.

All four of the Americans tied to the scheme are part of the African People’s Socialist Party and Uhuru Movement, including the organization’s chairman, Omali Yeshitela.

The organization describes itself as a movement “uniting African people as one people for liberation, social justice, self-reliance and economic development,” and has locations in St. Petersburg, Fla., and St. Louis.

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Yeshitela, along with other APSP members Penny Joanne Hess, Jesse Nevel and Augustus C. Romain Jr., are charged with conspiracy to defraud the U.S., and were also hit with charges of impersonating agents of a foreign government.

The majority of the alleged partnership between Ionov and Yeshitela centered around support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Yeshitela even held a press conference in 2022, during which he said the “African People’s Socialist Party calls for unity with Russia in its defensive war in Ukraine against the world colonial powers.”

The group also had a candidate, Eritha Akile Cainion, who ran unsuccessfully for St. Petersburg City Council in 2019. A few years later, she held a news conference defending Russia, saying “world colonial powers have been collaborating against Russia” for more than a century.

Matthew Olsen, the Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said in a news release that his department will not hesitate to prosecute those who attempt to corrupt U.S. elections, whether they are U.S. citizens or foreigners.

“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights — freedoms Russia denies to its own citizens — to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” Olsen said in the statement.

With News Wire Services