Original Material
U.S. Judge Spares FSB-Linked Russian Woman from Jail After Drunken Texts to FBI Agent
Nomma Zarubina, accused of lying to the FBI about her Russian intelligence contacts and of transporting women for prostitution, avoided pretrial detention after prosecutors said she broke a deal by sending dozens of late-night messages to an agent.
A Russian woman accused of lying to the FBI and of transporting women for prostitution escaped pre-trial imprisonment Friday after a federal judge in New York rejected prosecutors’ requests that she be jailed for sending dozens of drunken texts to an FBI agent.
Nomma Zarubina was indicted last year for allegedly lying to federal agents about her contact with an officer in Russia’s FSB intelligence service. Prosecutors allege she operated under the code name “Alyssa.” In April 2025, a grand jury added charges accusing her of transporting women across state lines for prostitution and of lying on her U.S. citizenship application.
Prosecutors have also highlighted texts in which Zarubina, 34, appeared to allege high-level coverups related to sex trafficking in the New York area, urging the FBI to investigate judges and law enforcement for ties to massage parlors and “long term relationships with Slavic females involving money.”
In the most recent case, Judge Laura Taylor Swain of the Southern District of New York spared Zarubina imprisonment in July on condition that she stop texting FBI agents and undergo counseling after prosecutors accused her of harassing agents with messages that mixed romantic suggestions and conspiratorial threats. But a new filing last week alleged Zarubina broke that deal in the early hours of September 13 by firing off about 50 texts to the FBI case agent.
Zarubina’s court-appointed public defender, Kristoff Williams, wrote in a Monday filing that the texts “are largely a byproduct of her being intoxicated and texting the agent while drunk. This is supported by the incoherent nature of the text messages and the time of day in which they are sent.”
The messages were sent shortly before and after 4 a.m. from Texas, where the court had allowed Zarubina to travel with her daughter. In an appendix, prosecutors included the texts and photos of her in a cowboy hat with a large glass of wine.
Rather than jailing Zarubina, her lawyer suggested the court require her to undergo treatment for her drinking problem. “Ms. Zarubina has disclosed that the stress of her case, and the resulting media coverage, has led her to cope through drinking,” Williams wrote. “It thus appears that Ms. Zarubina would benefit from alcohol treatment.”
He added, “Outside of the unsolicited text messages, there have been no other reported violations of Ms. Zarubina’s pretrial release.”
The alleged drunken texts came a week before a scheduled September 19 pretrial conference, which was moved to Friday.
The ruling was brief, noting that “Ms. Zarubina shall undergo outpatient evaluation and treatment for alcohol abuse” and that “Ms. Zarubina shall not consume alcohol at all.”
Zarubina’s arrest has drawn attention because of her reported prior work for Elena Branson, a Russian national indicted in 2022 for acting as an unregistered foreign agent. Branson, who had fled the U.S. by the time charges were announced, headed the Russian Center New York and oversaw its “I Love Russia” campaign—an effort prosecutors linked to Kremlin-backed propaganda. Branson’s case remains open.