Credit: DPA/Alamy Live News
Sezgin Baran Korkmaz, a Turkish tycoon now on the run over a half-billion-dollar fraud scheme involving members of fundamentalist Mormon sect, hosted influential Americans on a backchannel trip to Turkey to free jailed American pastor Andrew Brunson.
Trump backer Tommy Hicks Jr. and former C.I.A. Director James Woolsey flew to Turkey in September 2018 to help secure the release of Brunson from Turkish detention.
The men were hosted by Sezgin Baran Korkmaz, whose now-convicted U.S. business associates included an Armenian-American organized crime figure and members of a Mormon polygamist sect.
The backchannel mission to free Brunson was organized by Nancye Miller, a lobbyist married to Woolsey, who was in communication with the office of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The Americans mostly stayed in their hotel, and did not manage to have a planned meeting with Erdoğan. The pastor was freed the following month, but it’s unclear what led to that decision.