The US Justice Department charged the founder and three members of a half-century-old Black nationalist organization with conspiring with Russian intelligence to influence US elections on Tuesday.
Omali Yeshitela, the founder of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) and the Uhuru Movement, and two other party members, Penny Joanne Hess and Jesse Nevel, were charged with operating as unregistered agents of Russia, a crime punishable by up to five years in jail.
All three, as well as another member called Augustus Romain, have also been charged with conspiring to operate as Russian agents, which carries a maximum sentence of ten years in jail.
According to the indictment, the four people received money and other assistance from US-based Russian Alexandr Ionov and Moscow-based FSB intelligence agents who instructed Ionov.
Ionov was accused last year with leading an FSB-directed political influence operation, but his US contacts were not named, despite the fact that APSP premises were raided at the time.
Charges against Ionov, who is thought to be back in Russia, were amended in a new indictment filed in Tampa, Florida on Tuesday.
Undercover as the president of Russia’s Anti-Globalization Movement, Ionov used the APSP and Uhuru groups, as well as Romain’s Georgia-based branch Black Hammer, to promote Russian views on politics, the Ukraine war, and other matters.
According to the accusation, Yeshitela traveled to Russia in 2015 and formed a cooperation with Ionov’s firm.
According to the Justice Department, Ionov funded a four-city demonstration trip by APSP in 2016 in support of a “Petition on Crime of Genocide against African People in the United States.”
According to the charges, the group actively aimed to influence local elections in St. Petersburg, Florida, where the four Americans are based, and later the 2020 national elections.
It said that in 2022 Romain and Black Hammer received funding from Ionov and his group “to further the interests of Russia in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
The Justice Department said the Americans all knew Ionov worked for the Russian government.
