The son of a couple accused by U.S. federal prosecutors of working a deep cover assignment on behalf of the Russian government on Tuesday called the allegations against them “preposterous.”
In an interview outside the Yonkers, N.Y., home of Vicky Pelaez and Juan Lazaro, Waldo Mariscal said his mother and stepfather are being unfairly accused of espionage. They have no ties to Russia and have never visited the country, he said.
“It’s preposterous,” said Mariscal, who works as an architect.
Federal prosecutors have alleged Pelaez and Lazaro were among 11 people who worked as Russian government agents on a mission to blend into American society and penetrate policy-making circles.
Mariscal lives in the Yonkers home with his mother, stepfather and younger brother. On Sunday night, he said, he came home after a party and saw officers removing objects from the house; his first reaction, he said, was that the house had been flooded.
He described his mother, who worked for the Spanish newspaper El Diario, as a painter and artist. He added that her only connection to Russia is a love of the composer Tchaikovsky.
“We always had a very simple lifestyle,” he said.
When he showed up to the house on Sunday the officers only told him Pelaez and Lazaro had been detained.
“I’m overwhelmed by all of these booklets,” he said, referring to the charging documents. “It doesn’t look like an allegation, it looks like a sentence.”