Trump’s attorney said he wrote to the Romanian president under a retainer paid by Freeh Group, who represent Gabriel Popoviciu

Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani is being paid to assist lawyers working to free a wealthy Romanian-American real estate magnate who was convicted and sentenced to prison over a corrupt land deal.



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Giuliani last week wrote to Romania’s president and prime minister to complain about the nature of their country’s efforts to tackle corruption. He called for an amnesty for people convicted under what he called the “excesses” of the Romanian anticorruption authorities.

The former New York City mayor said on Tuesday that he wrote the letter under a retainer he is paid by the Freeh Group, a private consultancy run by Giuliani’s friend Louis Freeh, a former FBI director and federal judge. Giuliani declined to say how much he was paid.

Freeh represents Gabriel “Puiu” Popoviciu, who was convicted in 2016 of crimes relating to his purchase of land in Bucharest that he developed into a shopping mall. The conviction was upheld last year by an appeals court and Popoviciu was sentenced to seven years in prison. After police struggled to find him, he was located in London and arrested.

In a statement last year, Freeh said he had concluded that Popoviciu’s conviction and sentence were “not supported by either the facts or the law” after reviewing the case with a team that included former federal prosecutors.

Giuliani said he wrote his letter to Romania following “a review of the work done by Louis Freeh and Jim Bucknam”, Freeh Group’s chief executive. Bucknam worked for Giuliani as a federal prosecutor during the late 1980s, when Giuliani was the US attorney in Manhattan.

While Giuliani’s letter did not mention Popoviciu’s case, he claimed that innocent people had been jailed and that “an amnesty should be given to those who have been prosecuted and convicted through the excesses” of the anticorruption agency.

Asked to confirm that his work for Freeh effectively related to Popoviciu’s case, Giuliani said in a text message: “Overall situation not any one case. The letter speaks for itself. The rest you have to get from my client.” Freeh and Bucknam did not respond to requests for comment.

Giuliani said it was not improper for him to intervene in a foreign country’s law enforcement while simultaneously representing the US president and that the work was unconnected.

But after Romania’s ambassador to the US criticised Giuliani’s remarks, the country’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the country’s ambassadors should “refrain from public statements that could negatively affect bilateral relations with other states”.

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Popoviciu was last reported to have been bailed in the UK pending extradition. The Metropolitan police did not respond to questions about his case. According to Romanian media reports, Freeh Group has also been retained by Alexander Adamescu, a second wealthy Romanian awaiting extradition from London to face charges in his home country.

Popoviciu moved to the US from Romania in the early 1990s with his then wife Doina, the daughter of a former senior official in Nicolae Ceaușescu’s communist regime. Both registered to vote in the US, having apparently obtained US citizenship.

The Popovicius lived in New Jersey before buying a $3m condominium together in midtown Manhattan. The couple is reported to have divorced in 2012. Doina Popoviciu now owns the apartment and a neighbouring unit that she bought for $3.6m, according to city records.