TALLAHASSEE — Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian American businessman accused of funneling foreign money into U.S. elections, attended a string of events with Ron DeSantis in the closing moments of the Republican candidate’s 2018 campaign for governor in Florida.

In a photograph taken Nov. 4, two days before the election that propelled DeSantis to victory, Parnas is next to the smiling candidate at a campaign rally in South Daytona. Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is standing nearby in the shot, which was published by Getty Images.

Other pictures of Parnas with DeSantis at campaign events have surfaced, but the Getty photographs appear to show the two men traveling together during the heat of the gubernatorial campaign. DeSantis eventually edged out Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum after a recount.

Edward MacMahon, a Virginia attorney representing Parnas, said “if he was in the pictures,” then Parnas was likely on the DeSantis campaign plane.

The pictures show Ron DeSantis leaning in to hug a heavy-set, middle-aged man amid a sea of onlookers.
DeSantis then turns to another man, who wraps his arms around the newly-elected governor at his victory celebration in Orlando.

The two men embraced by DeSantis in these previously unpublished pictures? Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, the Soviet-born businessmen and Rudy Giuliani associates indicted on charges of interfering in U.S. elections. Obscure until this month, Fruman and Parnas have become major figures in the drama behind the drive to impeach President Donald Trump.

His spokeswoman Helen Aguirre Ferré first asserted Oct. 10 that Fruman and Parnas “may” have attended GOP events during the 2018 elections, but that DeSantis “does not have a relationship with these individuals.”

Four days later, videos and photos of the men huddled together during DeSantis’ victory party emerged.

Florida election officials can’t block a group of nearly 20 people with felony convictions from registering to vote if they can’t afford to repay their financial obligations, a federal judge in Florida ruled on Friday.

The ruling, a preliminary injunction, is a victory for voting rights groups that sued the state over a new law that required people with felony convictions to repay financial obligations before they could vote again.

“The court held that the right to vote cannot be denied based on a person’s inability to pay fines and fees. This ruling recognizes the gravity of elected officials trying to circumvent Amendment 4 and create voting roadblocks based on wealth,” said Julie Ebenstein, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, who represented some of the plaintiffs.

The law came after Florida voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment in November 2018 to repeal the state’s lifetime voting ban for people with felony convictions. Critics said the Florida law, passed in May, was an effort to undermine that change and effectively imposed a poll tax on people who couldn’t pay.