A federal judge in New York decided on Friday not to imprison a Russian woman accused of lying to the FBI and involvement in transporting women for prostitution, rejecting prosecutors’ arguments that she should be held in custody for sending dozens of intoxicated text messages to an FBI agent.
Nomma Zarubina, 34, faced indictment last year for allegedly misleading federal authorities about her connections with an officer from Russia’s FSB intelligence service. Prosecutors claim she used the alias “Alyssa” in her communications. In April 2025, additional charges were filed, accusing her of moving women across state lines for prostitution and making false statements on her U.S. citizenship application.
Authorities have highlighted messages where Zarubina seemed to suggest high-level cover-ups related to sex trafficking in the New York area, urging the FBI to examine judges and law enforcement for ties to massage businesses and “long-term relationships with Slavic females involving money.”
In a July hearing, Judge Laura Taylor Swain of the Southern District of New York allowed Zarubina to remain free on the condition she stop contacting FBI agents and attend counseling, after prosecutors said she had been harassing agents with mixed romantic and conspiratorial texts. However, a recent filing revealed she violated that agreement in the early hours of September 13 by sending about 50 messages to the FBI case agent.
Zarubina’s court-appointed lawyer, Kristoff Williams, argued in a Monday filing that the messages “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 texts were sent around 4 a.m. from Texas, where Zarubina had been allowed to travel with her daughter. Prosecutors included images of her in a cowboy hat holding a large glass of wine as evidence.
Rather than incarceration, defense counsel suggested mandatory treatment for alcohol abuse. “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 noted that aside from the unsolicited texts, there had been no other violations of her release conditions.
The incident occurred a week before a scheduled pretrial conference on September 19, which was moved to Friday. The judge’s ruling was brief, ordering that “Ms. Zarubina shall undergo outpatient evaluation and treatment for alcohol abuse” and that she “shall not consume alcohol at all.”
Zarubina’s case has attracted attention due to her previous work for Elena Branson, a Russian national indicted in 2022 for acting as an unregistered foreign agent. Branson, who fled the U.S. before charges were filed, led the Russian Center New York and its “I Love Russia” campaign, which prosecutors linked to Kremlin-backed propaganda. Her case remains unresolved.