NEWARK - The wife of a Russian entertainment promoter was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison today for conspiring with him and another co-defendant to extort money from two Russian women, who were among at least 25 others brought illegally into the United States to dance in New Jersey strip clubs, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie announced.

U.S. District Judge John C. Lifland also ordered Viktoriya I'lina, 41, of Brooklyn, to forfeiture $25,575 and to serve three years supervised release upon the completion of her prison term.

I'lina pleaded guilty on Jan. 3, becoming the third defendant to admit involvement in the conspiracy, in which Russian women were led to believe that serious harm would come to them or their families in Russia if they did not pay the defendants the sums of money demanded, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie F. Schwartz.

I'lina pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit extortion against two Russian women and one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud and immigration violations.

Judge Lifland sentenced I'lina's husband, Lev Trakhtenberg, in June to a maximum allowable 60 months in prison.

At her plea hearing, I'lina admitted before Judge Lifland that she, Trakhtenberg and the third defendant, Sergey Malchikov, encouraged and induced more than 25 women - between the fall of 1999 through August 2002 - to come from Russia to the United States in violation of the immigration laws. I'lina admitted that the majority of the women were brought into the U.S. on visa petitions which falsely purported that the women were part of internationally recognized or culturally unique Russian show groups.

Several other women were brought into the United States on exchange visas issued in connection with the University of Illinois, at Chicago. The exchange visas were obtained on the basis of false representations that the women were part of the Moscow Southwest Theater, a Russian acting troupe visited the University of Chicago as part of an exchange program.

I'lina further admitted that she conspired with Trakhtenberg and Malchikov to demand large sums of money from the two Russian women - $5,200 in the case of one of them and $2,600 in the case of the other - when the women indicated their intention to stop working in nude dancing club for members of the conspiracy. I'lina said that she conspired with Trakhtenberg and Malchikov to lead the two Russian women to believe that they and their families in Russia might be physically harmed if the demands were not met.

I'lina further admitted that she and the co-conspirators convinced the women that their passports - which had been turned over to the conspirators when the women arrived in the United States - would not be returned until they paid the sums demanded. As part of her plea agreement, I'lina agreed to forfeit $25,575 that was seized from her Brooklyn residence at the time of a court-authorized search in August 2002.

On June 3, 2005, Trakhtenberg, 41, was sentenced to 60 months in prison - the maximum allowed under the law - for conspiring to force Russian women to dance in New Jersey strip clubs and extorting exorbitant fees from them for their work. Trakhtenberg, was also ordered by U.S. District Judge John C. Lifland to pay $66,380 in restitution to victims of the forced labor conspiracy.

Judge Lifland ordered the sentence for Trakhtenberg to run concurrently to a 42-month sentence he received from a federal judge in Manhattan on March 10, 2005. That sentence was for Trakhtenberg's separate guilty plea in November to conspiring to commit extortion against another Russian woman in New York. In the New York case, the Indictment charged that Trakhtenberg placed the Russian woman into prostitution and that when she attempted to quit, Trakhtenberg demanded that she pay him $5,000. When the woman failed to pay the demanded sum, Trakhtenberg arranged for a conspirator to contact the woman and threaten her family with physical harm.

On July 21, 2005, Sergey Malchikov, 45, was sentenced to 45 months in prison by Judge Lifland for his guilty plea to conspiracy to commit forced labor, visa fraud, immigration fraud, and extortion against the same Russian woman that was the subject of the New York indictment.

Christie credited Special Agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Leslie Wiser, Jr.; Investigators with the State Division of Criminal Justice, under the direction of New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey; and Special Agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Kyle Hutchins, for their work in developing the case.

Christie also thanked the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York, under the direction of U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia, for its assistance in bringing the defendants to justice.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie F. Schwartz, of the Criminal Division's Strike Force Unit, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Jampol, of the Violent Crimes Unit, both in Newark.

Defense Attorneys:
Lawrence S. Lustberg, Esq., and Michael Baldassare, Esq., of Newark for Viktoriya I'lina