A love-struck suspected Moscow mole from Brooklyn who tried to infiltrate US political and media circles has pleaded responsible to mendacity to the feds — after drunkenly texting an FBI agent, “Catch me, child.”
Bleached-blonde 35-year-old Nomma Zarubina was initially busted in November 2024 on expenses she fibbed about her dealings with Kremlin spies and freed on bail — until her flirty late-night messages to the G-man surfaced, and he or she landed behind bars in December.
“Catch me child,” Zarubina texted the federal agent — an obvious unrequited love curiosity — in the future at 4:17 a.m. final September in a weird string of missives almost a yr after her arrest.
“I’m sooooo unhealthy,” she wrote the identical night time — in a thread she confessed she despatched whereas consuming closely.
A choose repeatedly warned her to cease texting the agent, however Zarubina continued to message him — together with 65 extra occasions throughout a single night time in November 2025, telling him “I like you” after which, after not receiving a reply, calling him a “b—h.”‘
Within the texting, the Russian native additionally name-dropped Maria Butina, an admitted Russian agent who served 15 months in jail for infiltrating conservative networks to affect US Republican politics.
“I assume Butina acquired extra consideration,” she huffed to the agent.
Zarubina, who had been residing in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, earlier than being despatched to jail, additionally texted the FBI agent “mmmmm” alongside a photograph of herself guzzling a glass of purple wine whereas carrying a cowboy hat, courtroom information present.
The alleged Moscow mole confessed throughout summer time 2024 conferences with the FBI that she’d been working for the Kremlin since December 2020 underneath the code identify “Alyssa,” based on a federal grievance unsealed in Manhattan federal courtroom.
Russian brokers had requested her to community at Washington, DC, think-tanks, with the US army neighborhood and journalists, courtroom papers stated.
Her handlers allegedly requested her easy methods to contact a few of her connections — who they deliberate to ask to Russia to “convert” to the “Russian mind-set.”
She ended up convincing a number of Capitol Hill energy brokers to pose along with her for images, stated to the top of a DC-based nonprofit advocating for a free and democratic Russia to The Publish.
Dmitry Valuev, president of Russian America for Democracy in Russia, stated his group had flagged Zarubina as suspicious for years earlier than her arrest and tracked her work for a “shady Russian nonprofit” as their consultant to the UN.
The FBI first met with Zarubina in October 2020 concerning a probe into her shut buddy Elena Branson, who was indicted in 2022 for allegedly spreading Russian international affect by means of a company referred to as the Russian Middle New York. Branson fled to Moscow throughout the probe and remains to be at giant.
Zarubina advised the feds that she labored for Branson however denied having any contact with Russian spy brokers throughout interviews in 2021, 2022, and 2023, courtroom papers stated.
However the reputed Russian snoop lastly got here clear throughout conferences in June and July 2024 — which she now says she solely sat for as a result of she’d caught “emotions” for the FBI agent.
“He influenced me. I don’t know the way — easy methods to clarify that. However my life grew to become so totally different after I met him,” she advised a choose at one level. “And it’s not one thing unhealthy, it’s not one thing detrimental, however it’s clearly that he simply, like, managed me emotionally.”
However Zarubina advised the courtroom that she “understood speaking with the FBI” as a result of “they really work the identical as Russians work.
“They body folks, they construct instances, you realize,” she stated.
She insisted that she was not a “spy,” regardless of her admitted contact with Russian espionage brokers.
“My life now looks as if a tragedy as a result of I get virtually every single day threats from many individuals from many international locations who assume that I used to be a spy however they don’t know the entire story,” she advised the courtroom.
After listening to Zarubina out, Choose Laura Swain dominated that she’d breached the circumstances of her launch on $20,000 bond by persevering with to drink booze and “harassing” the agent regardless of repeated warnings to cease.
“I hear the ache that you simply’re in, and I hear the difficulty and the battle that’s led us right here
at the moment, however you’re not serving to your self. You’re not stopping this conduct,” the choose stated.
Federal prosecutors individually accused Zarubina in April 2025 of collaborating in a scheme to move girls to have interaction in prostitution at an unidentified therapeutic massage parlor in East Brunswick, NJ — expenses that she additionally talked about throughout one in all her drunk tirades to the FBI agent.
Zarubina pleaded responsible on Thursday to 2 counts of creating false statements, each to the FBI concerning the Russian spy contacts and to immigration officers by falsely stating on a naturalization utility that she’d not been concerned in prostitution. She faces as much as 10 years in jail at her sentencing June 11.
Her public defender attorneys, who didn’t return a request to remark, advised the courtroom that she’d been residing in Brooklyn whereas the case was pending and had been the first caretaker of her younger daughter.
She’s anticipated to be deported on account of the felony conviction.
