NSS Drops Criminal Case
On July 24, the National Security Service announced that it is closing the criminal case against Vartan Oskanian, the Civilitas founder, because there is no evidence to substantiate their charges of money laundering. This was the case which was opened in May, 2012, and which also implicated Civilitas, sometimes as victim, sometimes as witness.
Mr. Oskanian issues a statement which read, in part, “The most important thing in all of this is that they dropped the two extremely serious charges of money laundering and embezzlement, for which I was stripped of my parliamentary immunity, and this was done because of the lack of evidence. They were forced to seek other avenues to close the case.”
He continued to say, “From the day that I was first charged, I have said that not only has every last penny of the funds entrusted to me by Jon Huntsman been used solely for the benefit of the Civilitas Foundation, but that at the time of the full transfer of the funds, the total amount had grown by more than $100,000.”
The Civilitas Foundation remains under investigation by the Tax Service which was called in at the request of the National Security Service. Their investigation has extended over 13 months.