Since he and Igor Fruman were arrested back in October for alleged campaign finance violations, Ukrainian-American businessman and Rudy Giuliani crony Lev Parnas has spent much of his time at home, where he's been under house detention as he awaits his upcoming trial. Recently, however, Parnas—who allegedly helped Giuliani and the Trump administration's dealings in Ukraine—has decided he'd like a bit more freedom, asking the court to let him leave his house during daytime hours with the stipulation that he would avoid airports, boat docks, and train terminals (i.e., places where he could flee the country). But in a new court filing Wednesday, the Southern District of New York argued that not only should Parnas not be allowed to leave his house as he pleases, but he should instead be detained even more strictly and have his bail revoked. The federal prosecutors claim that the businessman, who was arrested at an airport holding a one-way ticket to Vienna, unsurprisingly “poses an extreme risk of flight,” in part because Parnas lied about his assets to the government—including an undisclosed $1 million payment from Russia.

Parnas, the filing explains, was able to secure his home detention on a $200,000 cash bond, after claiming that he didn't have enough assets to cover the bond when it was originally set at $1 million. But in his statements to Pretrial Services and the Government after he was released on bond, Parnas made substantially different disclosures about his assets each time, and prosecutors say none of the statements Parnas made “were consistent or fully accurate.” That's partially because Parnas conveniently managed to leave out some undisclosed payments that would have shown he could have afforded the $1 million bail, including that he “received $1 million from a bank account in Russia” in September 2019. The filing doesn't explain who paid Parnas or what the payment was for—though prosecutors note Parnas has “connections to Russian and Ukrainian nationals of nearly limitless means”—but notes that Parnas primarily used the funds on personal expenses, including buying a home.

The businessman's lies about his money, prosecutors argue, are one of several reasons that Parnas shouldn't be trusted not to leave the country, along with his penchant for taking “circuitous travel routes that obscured his final destination” when he traveled abroad; his adeptness “at gaining access to foreign funding” (including $1.5 million from Russian and Ukrainian sources over the last three years); and his ties to top-level Ukrainian officials, among other “incentives to flee.” Not only did Parnas lie about his assets, but he also took pains to obscure them, holding the undisclosed funds in a bank account controlled by his wife Svetlana in what appears to be an attempt to “hide assets in his wife’s name to ensure that he remains judgment-proof.” These dubious practices don't necessarily come as a surprise, given that Parnas, the Wall Street Journal reported, has such a history of corruption that he named his business “Fraud Guarantee” in part to get better Google results when searching “Lev Parnas fraud.” But to prosecutors, they also “[show] that any trust the Court places in Parnas would be significantly misplaced.” “It is difficult to overstate the extreme flight risk that Parnas poses,” the prosecutors wrote.

Because of this, SDNY is requesting that Parnas has his bail revoked and goes from home detention to “home incarceration,” which would further restrict his opportunities to leave his house and possibly flee the country. (Under home detention, Parnas is still allowed to “leave his house for court appearances, to meet with counsel, and for medical and religious appointments.”) Prosecutors are also asking that Parnas's “attorneys be required to visit his home in person,” and that his wife and son surrender their passports so they cannot flee the country with him.