Massimo D'Angelo photographed at Old Tbilisi Garden, a Georgian restaurant in Manhattan, New York. Photo: Ryland West/ALM

In Massimo D'Angelo's years as a Manhattan commercial litigator, he has swam in the shark-infested waters of New York City real estate, weathered his share of tense negotiations and crossed paths with plenty of intimidating characters. It was his work on a contract dispute for a member of the Big Apple's Georgian community that got him mixed up in a high-stakes habeas corpus battle for the ex-president of a former Soviet republic—and changed the trajectory of his legal practice to have more of a global focus. D'Angelo, a partner at Akerman, is part of a global team fighting to free former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili from a hospital in his home country where, his surrogates argue, he is slowly dying from getting poisoned at the behest of his political enemies. That list includes Russian President Vladimir Putin—who in 2008 said he would hang Saakashvili "by his balls" following a short war between the two countries over contested regions on Georgia's northern border—and the ruling Georgian Dream Party, which is on good terms with the Kremlin. "Without the assistance of the U.S., he's going to die," D'Angelo said in an interview with the Law Journal. D'Angelo noted that his work for Saakashvili has not made him any friends in the Russian government. Last week, when President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a representative of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on her Telegram channel that Zelensky could end up like Saakashvili, the Georgian media outlet InterpressNews reported. The representative, Maria Zakharova, also took aim at D'Angelo, saying that Saakashvili's lawyers violated U.S. law by not reporting Saakashvili's retainer payment in a timely manner, and called Saakashvili "cursed by their own people, useless, forced to spend the money earned in America generously on American lawyers for betraying their own countries." D'Angelo said that he was not allowed to bring a camera into his meeting with the former president. But the photos that Georgia's correctional system have released of Saakashvili, which have been published in various publications, depict a man who appears to be a fraction of the sturdily-built man, who at the age of 36 in 2004 became the youngest person elected to lead his native country. Georgian prosecutors have said that Saakashvili abused his power during his tenure to cover up the beating of an opposition lawmaker and the murder of a banker, an effort that Saakashvili and his supporters have described as politically motivated. Saakashvili left office and his country altogether in 2013 and prosecutors proceeded with their case against him. In 2018, he was convicted in absentia of abusing the powers of his office and sentenced to prison. In spite of the legal consequences awaiting him in Georgia, Saakashvili returned home for the first time in 2021 and was promptly arrested. The treatment Saakashvili has undergone since his capture has been denounced by leaders from across the globe—including the European Parliament and Zelensky, with the latter recently saying that the Georgian government has sentenced the former president to a "de facto public execution." One doctor in D'Angelo's international detachment who personally examined the 55-year-old Saakashvili concluded that the former president is "gravely disabled including significant deconditioning, muscle atrophy, sensorimotor polyneuropathy, and post-traumatic stress disorder, all of which occurred during confinement." Medical experts on the team say that Saakashvili's symptoms are consistent with being poisoned with heavy metals, according to court papers. D'Angelo said Saakashvili has lost about 40% of his body weight and may have brain damage. D'Angelo's work on Saakashvili's behalf has brought him and Akerman into a "new atmosphere" of legal work, he told the Law Journal. His team recently submitted filings under the Foreign Agents Registration Act—the first time an Ackerman attorney has done so, he said. And he's been darting across the globe and meeting with lawmakers and other figures on both sides of the pond while he and his team of associates mount attacks on the international sanctions front. Among those efforts is lobbying U.S. officials to bring charges against Georgian Dream Party leaders, members of the country's judiciary and medical personnel at the facility where Saakashvili is being held under the Magnitsky Act, a sanctions regime named for a lawyer who tried to expose financial corruption in Russia and who died while being held in brutal captivity there. "Unless we can get the U.S. and its allies to come out and vociferously stand up for this and start engaging in sanctions, and pushing the Magnitsky sanctions, there's gonna be no way to save him," D'Angelo said. "If the U.S. steps in and the U.K. steps in we have a chance for diplomatic release."

Massimo D'Angelo photographed at Old Tbilisi Garden, a Georgian restaurant in Manhattan, New York. Photo: Ryland West/ALM

'I Didn't Get Much Sleep' Assessments of Saakashvili's two terms as president are mixed. He oversaw a period of unprecedented economic growth in the country—which can be seen in the new construction that has sprung up all around ancient Tbilisi—and brought it closer to the U.S. and the rest of the Western world, with more than 80% of Georgians support joining the European Union, according to the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute. But in addition to the destruction and displacement wrought in Georgia's five-day war with Russia, Saakashvili also faced mass protests against his administration during the last few years of his tenure. Saakashvili was educated in the U.S.—he obtained his LL.M from Columbia Law School—and, following his 2013 departure from Georgia he spent a time in self-imposed exile in New York City. In a 2014 profile by The New York Times that highlighted the former president's dalliances with the cultural offerings of Brooklyn's Williamsburg section—he is photographed for the article drinking from a fresh coconut at Smorgasburg—his popularity back home was described as "eroded" and his reported interactions with fellow Georgians living in the Big Apple weren't all positive. When the Times' profile was published, Russia was engaged in its previous chapter of active armed conflict with Ukraine—a development that Saakashvili saw as an opportunity to rehabilitate his political image. He eventually became a citizen of Ukraine and became part of its government under then-President Petro Poroshenko, but resigned a year later after publicly accusing Poroshenko of not doing enough to stand up to corruption. Saakashvili's Ukrainian citizenship was revoked under Poroshenko but Zelensky had it reinstated following his 2019 election. Saakashvili decided to try and sneak back into his native country in October 2021 to show support for his old political party in upcoming elections. Following his arrest, top Georgian Dream Party leaders made public comments that allegedly shows that the case against Saakashvili is and always was politically motivated, D'Angelo's team argues in court papers. "Everybody was tired [of him]. We should have either arrested him or he should have quit politics," Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said in a statement to Civil Georgia, a news agency operated by a Georgian nonprofit, according to court papers. "This man is not quitting politics, he does not apologize, he does not beg forgiveness." The high stakes involved with winning Saakashvili's release became abundantly clear for D'Angelo last October when he made his first—and quite possibly his last—visit to Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, to meet with the hospitalized former leader and other members of the international team.

Massimo F. D'Angelo, right, appears on Georgian network Formula TV to discusses his involvement in fighting to free former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Courtesy Photo

D'Angelo hopped on a transatlantic flight with a burly ex-FBI agent at his side for protection, along with James Cobey, a Nobel Prize-winning board-certified orthopedic surgeon who came to examine Saakashvili. Upon landing, they were to meet with a pair of heavily-armed former members of Georgia's version of the Secret Service who accompanied D'Angelo on a press junket with various outlets, as well as a meeting with Saakashvili himself. "I didn't get much sleep," D'Angelo said of his time there during an interview with the Law Journal over tea and khachapuri—a cheese-filled bread topped with a freshly cracked egg, a staple of Georgia's cuisine—at Old Tbilisi Garden, a Georgian restaurant in Manhattan's West Village. He and his team worked with local Georgian counsel to gain Saakashvili's release, filing an amicus brief in Tbilisi City Court declaring his detention illegal under both Georgian and international law. "Mr. Saakashvili has been physically beaten, dragged, humiliated, psychologically abused and, equally distressing, deprived of medical care that is needed to save his life," the amicus brief reads. "Results of toxicological reports suggest that Mr. Saakashvili has been poisoned while in detention and improperly prescribed a combination of drugs that has led to white matter reduction in his brain." D'Angelo left Tbilisi unscathed but his bodyguard informed him as the wheels went up that he was considered persona non grata in the country from then on. And just after D'Angelo's return, the capital city court ruled against Saakashvili's release—though D'Angelo said the determination didn't come as a shock. "It's a tragedy but we knew this was coming," he said. But D'Angelo and his team are continuing their fight in the halls of power in Washington, D.C., Brussels and elsewhere. Earlier this month, the European Parliament—where D'Angelo has spent considerable amounts of time over the last year advocating for Saakashvili—overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution calling on Georgia to pardon and release the former president to Ukraine, where he holds citizenship. The lawmakers also said that Saakashvili's detention appears motivated by a "personal vendetta" nursed by billionaire and political nemesis Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder of the Georgian Dream Party. In response to the resolution, Georgian Dream officials denounced the resolution. "Unfortunately, the EP resolutions have become a source of disinformation and attacks against Georgia," Shalva Papuashvili, speaker of Georgia's parliament, said in a statement published in Civil Georgia. "There is a group of European politicians, who are doing their best to harm Georgia in order to save Saakashvili. This resolution contains many factual errors."