Felix Sater

Business and advisory career Sater attended Pace University, dropping out at the age of 18 to work on Wall Street, initially as a cold-caller at Bear Stearns. He subsequently worked at brokerages Ladenburg Thalmann, Broadchild Securities, Rooney Pace, Shearson, Moseley Securities, Gruntal & Co., and Lehman Brothers. In 1991, he smashed a margarita glass in a bar and used it to stab a commodities broker in the face, causing the man to need 110 stitches. For this, Sater was convicted of first-degree assault in 1993; spent 15 months in prison,

In 2008, Sater joined the board of the Russian real estate company Mirax Group, owned by Sergei Polonsky.

Work with the Bayrock Group

Sater joined Bayrock Group LLC as a senior advisor in 2003 at the behest of the company's owner and founder, Tevfik Arif. As a senior advisor, he assisted with several projects, including executive decisions in the Trump SoHo project. He left Bayrock Group LLC in 2008 after the New York Times disclosed his pending criminal case.

In December 2017, the Trump SoHo was renamed to The Dominick.

Other projects Sater has been an advisor, investor, or developer in notable real estate projects including the Trump International Hotel & Residence in Phoenix, Arizona, the Conrad Fort Lauderdale and Midtown Miami in Florida, and Cornwall Terrace and 1 Blackfriars in London.

In addition to real estate development endeavors, Sater also has started businesses in the fields of investment, retail, and energy.

In late January 2017, Sater met with Ukrainian politician Andrey Artemenko and Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, at the Loews Regency in Manhattan to discuss a plan to lift sanctions against Russia. The proposed plan would require that Russian forces withdraw from eastern Ukraine and that Ukraine hold a referendum on whether Crimea should be "leased" to Russia for 50 or 100 years. On 20 February 2017, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rejected Russia "leasing" Crimea from Ukraine claiming "we cannot rent from ourselves".

Criminal convictions and federal cooperation Felix Sater has been described as a career criminal due to his links to organized crime. In 1991, Sater got into an argument with a commodities broker at the El Rio Grande restaurant and bar in Midtown Manhattan. He stabbed the man's cheek and neck with the stem of a cocktail glass, breaking his jaw, lacerating his face, and severing nerves, creating a wound that would require 110 stitches to treat. Sater was convicted of first degree assault, and spent 15 months in minimum security Edgecombe Correctional Facility in New York City before being paroled. In 1998, Sater was convicted of fraud in connection to a $40 million penny stock pump and dump scheme conducted by the Russian Mafia she stated that Sater provided "information crucial to national security and the conviction of over 20 individuals, including those responsible for committing massive financial fraud and members of Cosa Nostra. In 2006 there was a lawsuit that alleged that Sater made a death threat against a Bayrock investor named Ernie Menez. Sater threatened to have a man electrically shock Menez's genitals, cut off his legs, and have him put in the trunk of a car. Sater possibly did this because of Menez finding out about his past convictions and links to organized crime.

The Financial Times, citing five sources with knowledge of the matter, reported that Sater had agreed to cooperate with investigators looking into an international money laundering scheme involving Viktor Khrapunov, a former government minister in Kazakhstan. Khrapunov, who now lives in Switzerland, has been accused by the Kazakhstani government of embezzling millions of dollars and is wanted by Interpol. Ablyazov's alleged fraud is one of the biggest cases of financial fraud in history.

In 2020, there was a civil lawsuit accusing Felix Sater and his partner Daniel Ridloff of using Trump properties such as Bayrock to launder millions of dollars in stolen funds. Sater denied the allegations and had attempted to settle the suit. In October 2025, Sater was found liable during a retrial and was ordered to pay $52 million in damages.

Role in the manhunt for Osama bin Laden

In December 2017, Sater was questioned by a congressional committee in an out-of-state interview about Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. In his opening statement to that interview, Sater claimed to be a confidential source for the U.S. Government who played an important role in providing intelligence related to the Northern Alliance and Taliban, and locating and disrupting Al-Qaeda operations in Afghanistan as well as locating Osama bin Laden prior to the September 11 attacks. Sater further claimed that he had been in a position to kill bin Laden in 1998 during a raid on a terrorist training camp inside Afghanistan and regretted his decision not to, a claim that was later confirmed by investigative journalists Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier via U.S. intelligence officials with knowledge of the incident. In 2019, as part of a broader discussion with the House Intelligence Committee about his years-long cooperation with the FBI, CIA, and Defense Intelligence Agency, Sater formally testified to assisting the U.S. Government locate Osama Bin Laden. Judge I. Leo Glasser confirmed that Sater helped the U.S. government track down bin Laden as he provided the telephone number of Osama bin Laden. Sater had been in a position to access information related to bin Laden's phone numbers and whereabouts due to having been involved with a telecommunications company with ties to the GRU in the mid-1990s that operated in former Soviet bloc countries and sold transmission data to AT&T.

Involvement with Trump Organization during presidential campaign The Trump Organization pursued a luxury hotel and condominium project in Moscow—dubbed the Trump Tower Moscow—during the Trump presidential campaign. This project was facilitated by Michael Cohen, then an attorney for the Trump Organization, and from January 2016 to May 2017 Trump's personal attorney. Trump signed a nonbinding "letter of intent" dated October 13, 2015, to proceed with the project. and on April 13, 2018, reported that a former Russian spy had helped secure financing for the project. In 2010, Sater was provided business cards describing himself as "Senior Advisor to Donald Trump" with an email address at TrumpOrg.com. and in 2015 he stated "Felix Sater, boy, I have to even think about it. I'm not that familiar with him." Trump has been photographed several times with Sater, including while speaking privately with him.

Sater's anticipated public testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, scheduled for March 27, 2019, was postponed pending the imminent release of the Mueller Report. He was then rescheduled to give closed-door testimony on June 21, 2019. On June 21, 2019, the U.S. House Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena to Sater after he skipped a testimony which he agreed to voluntarily. He later appeared before the House Intelligence Committee on July 9, 2019 during a closed door meeting which lasted for eight hours. Though Sater claimed that he cooperated and provided information about the Trump Tower project, Patrick Boland, spokesman for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, denied this and stated that Sater only partially cooperated and showed defiance by withholding requested testimony and documents concerning a real estate project which Sater acknowledged was falsely presented as a joint defense agreement between Trump and Russia and the telephone conversations pertaining to this agreement. Boland also stated that Sater will remain under subpoena until he cooperates with this request. Felix Sater was a member of the Chabad of Port Washington and was named their Man of the Year in 2010 and 2014.