U.S. judge orders accused Russian agent jailed

A U.S. judge ordered accused Russian agent Maria Butina jailed on Wednesday pending trial after federal prosecutors warned that she has ties to Russian intelligence and was a flight risk.

During a hearing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, prosecutors showed a photo of Butina meeting an alleged Russian intelligence operative at a Washington restaurant.

The Justice Department said Butina has been in contact with Russian intelligence operatives, kept contact information for several Russian agents and had a handwritten note in her Washington apartment asking how to respond to an offer of employment with a Russian intelligence agency.

The 29-year-old former American University graduate student wore an orange prison jumpsuit and showed no emotion as her lawyer entered a not-guilty plea.

Prosecutors suggest Butina used her gun-lobbying efforts to infiltrate the NRA and the Republican Party, both during the 2016 presidential campaign and after Trump's election.

Russia's Foreign Ministry saidon Wednesday the arrest was carried out to spoilthe positive impact of Monday's Russia-U.S. summit in Helsinki, the state-runRIA news agency reported.

Spokesperson Maria Zakharova was cited as saying there wereno grounds for holding Butina, who wasarrested on Sunday, a day before presidents Vladimir Putin andDonald Trump met in Helsinki.

Butina, who studied at American University in Washington and is a founder of the pro-gun Russian advocacy group Right to Bear Arms, was charged Monday with conspiracy to take actions on behalf of the Russian government.

Butinahas not been charged with espionage or with being a member of a Russian intelligence service.

On Tuesday, a grand jury indictment added a more serious charge of acting as an unregistered agent of the Russian government, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The conspiracy charge carries a maximum five-year prison term.

She is suspected of gathering intelligence on U.S. officials and political organizations and working to establish back-channel lines of communications for the Kremlin.

Prosecutors detailed extensive private Twitter conversations and other discussions between Butina and a senior Russian official about her activities in the United States.

Allegations of sex, deception

The Russian official is believed to be Alexander Torshin, deputy head of the Russian Central Bank and a target of U.S. sanctions since April. He and the Central Bank didn't respond to requests for comment about Butina's arrest.

Prosecutors made the allegations in documents that also accuse her of using sex and deception to establish influential connections she could tap to infiltrate U.S. political organizations and gather intelligence for a senior Russian official.

Prosecutors also alleged that she used a personal relationship with an unnamed 56-year-old American political operative, with whom she was living, "as simply a necessary aspect" of her covert activities on behalf of Russia.

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Authorities say the relationship with the operative, identified as "U.S. Person 1" in court papers, shouldn't be seen as a "strong tie" to the U.S., noting she "offered an individual other than U.S. Person 1 sex in exchange for a position within a special interest organization."

Court papers do not name the individual or the special interest group.

Photos on Butina's Facebook page include several with Paul Erickson, a South Dakota-based conservative political activist. South Dakota public records list Erickson as being 56 and that the pair established a company in 2016 together called Bridges LLC that lists its address at Erickson's home and cites Butina as an authorized person for the company.

It was unclear from the records what the company does or why they incorporated it.

Erickson did not return several calls from Reuters seeking comment.

Kremlin-backed Russian television calls her the "ideal victim" of anti-Russian hysteria in the U.S.

Robert Driscoll, an attorney for Butina, said she was not a Russian agent. He called the allegations "overblown" and said prosecutors had criminalized mundane networking opportunities.

The Russian Embassy in Washington saysButinahasn't been able to meet with consular representatives since her Sunday arrest.