FBI informant Alexander Smirnov charged with lying about $10MILLION bribery scheme involving Bidens WILL appear in court today as judge considers whether he will remain behind bars over flight risk fears

The former FBI informant charged with lying about a $10 million-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden´s family is set to appear in a California federal court on Monday.

A judge will determine whether Alexander Smirnov, 43, must remain behind bars while he awaits trial. 

Special counsel David Weiss' office is pressing U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II to keep Smirnov in jail, arguing the man who claims to have ties to Russian intelligence is likely to flee the country.

A different judge last week released Smirnov from jail on electronic GPS monitoring, but Wright ordered the man to be re-arrested after prosecutors asked to reconsider Smirnov's detention. 

Wright said in a written order that Smirnov's lawyers' efforts to free him was 'likely to facilitate his absconding from the United States.' 

Alexander Smirnov, second from right, leaves the courthouse on Feb. 20, 2024, in Las Vegas

Former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, left, walks out of his lawyer's office in downtown Las Vegas after being released from federal custody Tuesday, Feb. 20

In an emergency petition with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Smirnov's lawyers said Wright did not have the authority to order Smirnov to be re-arrested.

The defense also criticized what it described as 'biased and prejudicial statements' from Wright insinuating that Smirnov's lawyers were acting improperly by advocating for his release.

Smirnov is charged with falsely telling his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid President Biden and Hunter Biden $5 million each around 2015. The claim became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry of President Biden in Congress.

In urging the judge to keep Smirnov locked up, prosecutors said the man has reported to the FBI having contact with Russian intelligence-affiliated officials.

 Prosecutors wrote in court filings last week that Smirnov told investigators after his first arrest that officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story to him about Hunter Biden.

Smirnov, who holds dual Israeli-U.S. citizenship, is charged by the same Justice Department special counsel who has separately filed gun and tax charges against Hunter Biden.

Smirnov has not entered a plea to the charges, but his lawyers have said they look forward to defending him at trial. 

Defense attorneys have said in pushing for his release that he has no criminal history and has strong ties to the United States, including a longtime significant other who lives in Las Vegas.

In his ruling last week releasing Smirnov on GPS monitoring, U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel Albregts in Las Vegas said he was concerned about his access to what prosecutors estimate is $6 million in funds, but noted that federal guidelines required him to fashion 'the least restrictive conditions' ahead of his trial.

Smirnov had been an informant for more than a decade when he made the explosive allegations about the Bidens in June 2020, after 'expressing bias' about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, prosecutors said. 

Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Burisma starting in 2017, according to court documents. 

Diana Lavrenyuk (right) poses with her son Nikolay and another woman

Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, talks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, Dec. 2023

No evidence has emerged that Joe Biden acted corruptly or accepted bribes in his current role or previous office as vice president.

While his identity wasn´t publicly known before the indictment, Smirnov´s claims have played a major part in the Republican effort in Congress to investigate the president and his family, and helped spark what is now a House impeachment inquiry into Biden. 

Republicans pursuing investigations of the Bidens demanded the FBI release the unredacted form documenting the unverified allegations, though they acknowledged they couldn´t confirm if they were true.

Smirnov was known as a 'stand up, good neighbor,' to those who knew him and his long-time girlfriend Diana Lavrenyuk, 58, who lived in a $3.2 million home in the California mission town of San Juan Capistrano.

'We’d go to dinner, share meals, share a glass of wine. I liked him a lot, and Diana. They were both very nice,’ Mike Pastore, a 75-year-old mortgage broker who lives opposite the terracotta-tiled four-bed house where Smirnov resided the past five years, told DailyMail.com.

‘He was a stand-up, good neighbor. He loved being in America; both of them did.

Smirnov, a joint Israeli-American citizen, now faces 25 years in prison for allegedly fabricating the claims about Biden, and is accused of ‘high-level’ and ‘extremely recent’ links with senior Russian intelligence officials – including the chief of an assassination squad.

But in San Juan Capistrano he kept a low profile while he acted as a paid informant for federal law enforcement over 13 years, helping numerous criminal and counterintelligence probes, according to prosecutors.

Only small hints of his double-life slipped through to neighbors, in conversations over dinner at a local steakhouse or backyard barbecue.

‘He said he had connections with important people. In one conversation he mentioned that he had a meeting with the Minister of Defense in Afghanistan,’ one neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous, told DailyMail.com. ‘And he had connections with important people in the US.’

Pastore said: ‘I know he was involved with the government. I know he was originally from the East Bloc. Though I don’t think he actually told me that.

‘From time to time, we talked about geopolitical stuff, and he was well informed. It was an interesting conversation with him… He traveled a lot.’

The neighbors said the more they discovered about Smirnov, the greater a mystery he became.

‘He had a very unconventional lifestyle,’ said one resident of the affluent Southern California cul-de-sac, which borders a creek, equestrian stables and a golf club. ‘He struck me as odd.

‘This is a very safe neighborhood. But when he moved in here, he put up more cameras than I think there are in the whole neighborhood. So he was very security-conscious.

‘The way he conducted his lifestyle made me think that he lived here to be under the radar.’

Pastore said Smirnov told him he owned the $3.2 million, 3,810 sq ft home on their hillside street.

But after he sold it in May last year, telling Pastore he was moving to Las Vegas with Lavrenyuk, the new owners revealed that the property was not in Smirnov’s name.

‘Obviously he was very well-set financially, even though his name wasn’t on the deed to the house,’ said one neighbor. ‘He spent a lot of time and money remodeling.

‘He had this house, a house in Las Vegas he said, and property in other countries as well.

‘He had some connections with Israel and the Eastern Bloc – at least he said so.’

Property records show the home was purchased in 2018 by Nikolay Lavenyuk, the son of Smirnov’s long-term partner. Pastore said Nikolay lived on the East Coast. Smirnov was not mentioned in the purchase or sale records.

Pastore told DailyMail.com that Smirnov and Lavrenyuk appeared to be a long-time couple.

‘I had the impression they’d been together a long time. He had a painting of her in the entryway to their home. The painting was 4.5ft by 3 ft, oil on canvas. It was a beautiful picture, and he loved her dearly,’ he said.

‘I can’t even believe this was happening. For him to be involved with Burisma that’s some pretty high-level stuff. It’s intriguing. But he never shared any of that with me.

‘I’m blown away.’

After Smirnov was released on bail by a federal judge in Las Vegas, another judge in Los Angeles ordered him arrested. He is now due in court on Monday

Smirnov's glamorous cousin Linor Shefer was with him in court in Las Vegas this week. She was a former contestant on the Israeli version of reality show Big Brother, and in 2014 won the Moscow beauty pageant ‘Miss Jewish Star’.

Smirnov also kept a low profile online. No pictures of him have emerged yet, apart from a photograph of him with his face covered, leaving the Lloyd George federal courthouse in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

He was accompanied from court by his cousin, Linor Shefer, who works for a real estate developer in business with Donald Trump.

Shefer, a 38-year-old Israeli-American, was a former contestant on the Israeli version of reality show Big Brother, and in 2014 won the Moscow beauty pageant ‘Miss Jewish Star’.

According to her LinkedIn page, she has been an ‘Inhouse Consultant’ for Dezer Development in Miami, Florida since 2022.

Dezer partnered with Trump’s organization to develop the $600 million Trump Grande Ocean Resort and Residences and $900 million Trump Towers. The company is run by Gil Dezer, and founded by his Israeli-American billionaire father Michael, who is a Trump donor.

Smirnov’s attorneys told the court at his Tuesday hearing that their client had a close personal relationship with his cousin Shefer, arguing it reduced his risk of absconding.