Back in November, this blog reported on the indictment of a Russian citizen, Roman Kvinikadze, on charges that he attempted to export military thermal imaging sights without the required State Department license. As we noted then, the indictment created a bit of a diplomatic row between the United States and Russia, with Russia claiming that federal agents knowingly provoked Kvinikadze to violate the law and then lured him into the United States to arrest him. The Russian pique was directed at statements by the undercover U.S. agent to Kvinikadze that the sights required an export license but that if the license was unavailable there were other ways he could ship the sights to Kvinikadze. Although these facts might not support the narrowly construed entrapment defense, they can easily been seen as grounds for a diplomatic contretemps.

Well, the Russian irritation seems to have been heard loud and clear in Washington. Last week, a federal judge sentenced Kvinikadze, who had entered a guilty plea, to time served and a $7500 fine. He also ordered Kvinikadze to leave the United States, something that Kvinikadze was no doubt happy to do with or without a judicial order requiring him to do so. Kvinikadze had been in custody for 147 days so time served was significantly less than would have been required under federal sentencing guidelines which would have specified a minimum sentence of 33 to 41 months. News reports stated that the prosecutor requested the reduced sentence, and the judge justified it by stating that “Kvinikadze may not have fully appreciated the potential damage to relations between the U.S. and Russia if the sights had fallen into wrong hands.”

When I reviewed the docket to see if I could find anything else to justify this lenient sentence, I discovered that the Presentence Report, the Presentence Report Recommendation and an Addendum to the Presentence Report were all sealed and unavailable for review. Although there are a number of reasons that this could be the case, including the possibility of the discussion of some extremely private matters involving Kvinikadze, my money is that these were sealed because they have a discussion of the diplomatic ramifications of the sentence, something that prosecutors and courts are loathe to reveal. So when Kvinikadze is safely back in Russia, I’m going to bet he sends an effusive thank you note to his BFF Vladimir Putin.

You may think of “I’m Going to Disney World!” as an iconic slogan from a Superbowl ad, but in many cases they are instead the famous last words of foreign export defendants. Consider Sergei Baltutski, a Belarusian, who said this last April before taking his family on a trip to Disney World. Problem is, Mr. Baltutski had been having fellow Belarusians in the United States ship to him in Belarus military night vision purchased from eBay, and he got nabbed at the airport on his way to see Mickey and friends. Worst. Vacation. Ever.

Baltutski pleaded guilty, and his sentencing hearing took place recently in Philadelphia. According to his lawyer, the items, approximately $700,000 worth of night vision, were simply used by Belarusian hunters to bag wild boar which, apparently, mostly run at night. Who knew there were that many wild boar, and that many hunters, in Belarus? The sentencing hearing has been deferred a few weeks to permit Baltutski’s lawyers to prepare their boar argument to counter the prosecution’s request for higher sentences based on the potential harm to national security posed by Baltutski’s exports.

One interesting detail, provided in this news report, is that Baltutski’s accomplices sent some of the night vision to him through the Belarusian diplomatic pouch. Say what? The Belarusians are permitting illegal exports of defense articles via their diplomatic pouch? It seems to me that if the government is serious about the threat of these exports, somebody needs to have a long talk with the folks at the Belarusian Embassy. The Vienna Convention probably prohibits prosecuting anyone in the Embassy, but it doesn’t prevent putting the folks involved on a plane back to Belarus

Baltutski’s case is missing from Pacer, but here’s the indictment of his co-conspirators.