Top Azeri lobbyist Kemal Oksuz sentenced two years of probation

Top Azeri lobbyist in the U.S. Kemal Oksuz, was sentenced on Monday to two years of probation, and was fined $20,000 for his fraud conviction for lying to Congress about Azerbaijan's role in a funding a trip for American lawmakers and their staff in 2013.

"I feel embarrassed and I am going through hard times... I take full responsibility for my unlawful conduct. I apologize... I am sorry for all the mess I have caused, Oksuz, 49, told a judge in Washington D.C., TURAN's U.S, correspondent reports.

The former president of a Texas-based non-profit has been charged in an indictment for his role in a scheme to conceal the fact that a 2013 Congressional trip to Baku was funded by Azerbaijan's state oil company SOCAR.

According to prosecutors, Oksuz knowingly lied on disclosure forms filed with the Ethics Committee prior to, and following, a privately sponsored Congressional trip to Azerbaijan.

He admitted to, in truth, orchestrating a scheme to funnel money to fund the trip from the wholly state-owned national oil and gas company of Azerbaijan, and then concealed the true source of funding, which violated Congressional travel regulations. "Standing here is a great shame on me," he said in court on Monday.

Judge Tanya Chutkan sad that she had to ask herself "how society and our community would be helped by sending Mr. Oksuz to jail further, and I can't see that as something that has to happen."

Oksuz was arrested in Armenia in August. He was credited with three months he spent in a Yerevan jail last year, plus another week that he was detained upon his return to the U.S. in November, 2018.

Note that TURAN has extensively covered the controversial 2013 trip since day one, raising questions about its funding.

http://www.turan.az/ext/news/2013/6/free/politics%20news/en/12007.htm

After U.S. news reports in 2015 picked the topic, the Justice Department opened an investigation, and several of the U.S. lawmakers returned some of the expensive gifts that they had received in Baku as part of the trip.

A.Raufoglu

Washington D.C,