A massive lobbying campaign on behalf of a Russian businesswoman with US ties suffered a major setback over the weekend when a Kuwaiti court sentenced her to 15 years of hard labor on embezzlement charges.

Marsha Lazareva's former firm, Kuwait-based KGL Investment, retained a stable of well-connected former US officials this year to fight accusations that she and her former boss, Saeed Dashti, swindled government investors of proceeds from the sale of property at a former US air base in the Philippines. The pair were arrested in November 2017 but Lazareva was released on bail in May.

Crowell & Moring, the lead law firm representing her, vowed to appeal the sentence and continue its campaign to get the United States and the United Nations to “put additional pressure on Kuwait,” according to a statement. Several US lawmakers have joined calls for Kuwait to release her, but other sources knowledgeable about the case privately question the wisdom of threatening US human-rights sanctions against a US ally because of an adverse court ruling against a private citizen.

The lobbying saga began in 2018 when the Port Fund, a Cayman Islands-based product of KGL Investment, hired Squire Patton Boggs and several other firms to lobby for the release of $500 million in investor funds frozen by the United Arab Emirates amid a complaint from Kuwait. The funds were released in February and the lobbying contract with Patton Boggs ended in July. In all the Port Fund spent $2.8 million on its lobbying.