Lev Parnas (Photo: Peter Foley/Bloomberg)

A Manhattan federal judge on Wednesday postponed the trial of Lev Parnas and another associate of Rudy Giuliani after prosecutors and defense attorneys raised concerns about their ability to ready the criminal campaign-finance case amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken of the Southern District of New York said that the planned trial, originally scheduled to begin Oct. 5, would be adjourned until Feb. 1, with pretrial motions now expected for the fall.

Prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office said in a court filing late Tuesday that they had to push back their timeline for filing a superseding indictment in the case because "pandemic-related travel restrictions" and social-distancing measures had made it difficult to access witnesses and grand jurors. Defense attorneys, they said, had raised similar concerns about their ability to meet with their clients, review discovery and otherwise prepare their defense.

"As such, and given the considerable uncertainty surrounding any timeline for a relaxation or removal of those restrictions the defendants have proposed to adjourn the current schedule," prosecutors wrote to the court.

Oetken on Wednesday approved the request for a revised timeline, which called for pretrial motions to be fully briefed by Nov. 16. According to the order, the parties were next set to appear in court Nov. 30, and a final pretrial conference was set for Jan. 31.

The move came as the Southern District, one of the busiest federal trial courts in the nation, continued to scale back its operations in response to the pandemic, which had shuttered nearly all of New York City and claimed the lives of more than 26,000 Americans, as on Wednesday afternoon.

All criminal and civil trials in the district have been postponed until at least June 1, though Chief Judge Colleen McMahon reiterated Friday that the court's guidance "may be revised as needed."

Parnas and Igor Fruman, two businessmen born in the former Soviet Union who had ties to Giuliani, are accused along with two other men in a scheme to prop up candidates for state and federal office in order to buy political influence in the U.S. All four defendants have pleaded not guilty and are currently free on bond awaiting trial.

Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a personal attorney to President Donald Trump, is reported to be under investigation in the Southern District, though he has not been charged with any crimes.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, have been producing "voluminous" discovery, which included hundreds of thousands of stamped documents, as well as approximately three terabytes worth of materials extracted from the defendants' phones, tablets and computers.

The U.S. Attorney's Office has long acknowledged the possibility of new charges in the case, but has yet to file a superseding indictment that could shed light on the scope of its investigation.

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