EXTORTION CHARGES FILED IN SPAIN AGAINST PANAMANIAN LAWYER WHO FRAMED KOKOREV FOR MONEY LAUNDERING

A Spanish prosecutor has filed criminal charges against the Panamanian attorney, Ismael Gerli, for Perjury, Making Threats, Disloyal Professional Conduct, Extortion, and Giving False Testimony Contrary to the Administration of Justice. Gerli, whose full name is Ismael Enrique Gerli Champsaur,  formerly represented the Russian businessman, Vladimir Kokorev, who has been charged with money laundering offenses in Spain, based solely upon Gerli's sworn statements, which are now considered to be false statements, made for material gain. The apparent intent of Gerli was to frame Kokorev, and his immediate family, for money laundering.

Spanish authorities, in the November 20, 2015 filing, state that Gerli threatened to  testify against Kokorev, before a Spanish court in the Canary Islands, unless he received money, and assignment of  title to real estate assets located in the Republic of Panama. Gerli also threatened the life of Kokorev, unless he received payment. Gerli sent multiple emails to the Kokorev family, and others, which the prosecutor attached to his filings, and which included Anti-Semitic slurs directed at Kokorev.

Gerli, who obviously violated the attorney-client privilege, by traveling to Spain, and giving testimony designed to implicate Kokorev, has a law license in Panama, but allegedly bought his law degree, without ever attending law school. Panama has the diploma privilege, meaning that no bar exam is required to become admitted to the bar, only a degree. Since opening his law office, Gerli has himself employed lawyers, to perform the office's legal work, because he has neither the education, nor experience, to do so.

Gerli's troubled history:

(1) A decade ago, he was implicated in a major money laundering case in Nicaragua, involving the most senior government officials; he is believed to have an outstanding warrant for his arrest in Nicaragua.

(2) Gerli has been closely connected to clients, or partners, who were involved with him in financial crime, in the Ukraine, and in Spain.

(3) Gerli is allegedly on the US Department of Justice No-Fly List, meaning that he cannot travel into, out of, through, or over, the United States.

(4) He is a defendant, in a civil case, in Panama, where it is alleged that he stole real estate from Kokorev, through fraud.

For the foregoing reasons, and others, Ismael Gerli's testimony at a trial in Spain, against Vladimir Kokorev, and members of his family, should be disallowed, and his former statements stricken from the record.