Attorney arrested for allegedly advising former Olympian client to kill witness

Canadian drug offenses lawyer Deepak Paradkar was arrested as a part of the FBI’s sweeping crackdown on former Olympian Ryan Wedding ceremony, the FBI and DOJ introduced Wednesday.

Wedding ceremony, a former Olympic snowboarder for Crew Canada, stays at giant on a number of prices, together with homicide in reference to a unbroken felony enterprise and drug crime, tampering with a witness, sufferer or informant, and retaliation in opposition to a witness, sufferer or informant.

Paradkar was described on the press convention by US Legal professional Invoice Essayli as Wedding ceremony’s lawyer. Essayli additionally alleged that Paradkar suggested Wedding ceremony to have a witness killed in an try and get a case dismissed.

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An aide reveals a wished poster throughout a press convention saying the indictment of former Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding ceremony, accusing him of homicide and cash laundering in reference to a drug trafficking group on the Division of Justice on November 19, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Photographs)

“His lawyer suggested him to kill this witness. His lawyer informed him, ‘For those who kill this witness, the case can be dismissed.’ That legal professional is now in custody and he can be extradited and dropped at justice right here in the US,” Essayli mentioned.

In the meantime, the indictment in opposition to Paradkar reads: “Defendant Paradkar, and others identified and unknown to the Grand Jury, allegedly accused Defendant Wedding ceremony and [Wedding’s accomplice Andrew] Clark that the homicide of Sufferer A would profit them by dismissing the federal prices in opposition to them in Wedding ceremony I and the associated extradition proceedings.

The indictment went on to allege that Paradkar allegedly allowed Clark to “covertly” pay attention to a dialog he had with one other suspect. The indictment additionally alleged that whereas Clark and one other defendant have been discussing the homicide of one other co-defendant, Paradkar suggested them to “talk about the matter on one other chat with out him current and take away any dialogue of the homicide plot.”

A US Treasury Division press release On Wednesday, officers issued separate sanctions in opposition to Paradkar, as officers accused the lawyer of violating the “belief of his purchasers and the ethics of his career” by permitting Wedding ceremony and his associates to snoop on privileged communications.

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“Paradkar is a Canadian lawyer who has offered a collection of unlawful companies to Wedding ceremony and his drug trafficking group, past the scope of a traditional attorney-client relationship,” the press launch mentioned.

“Paradkar launched Wedding ceremony to the drug traffickers who transported Wedding ceremony’s cocaine and in addition assisted Wedding ceremony with bribery and homicide.

“Paradkar violated the belief of his purchasers and the ethics of his career by permitting Wedding ceremony and his associates to snoop on privileged communications between Paradkar and his different purchasers, a few of whom sought to kill Wedding ceremony. Wedding ceremony paid Paradkar with luxurious watches and extra charges for these unlawful companies.”

Wedding ceremony in the end ordered successful on a federal witness by publishing pictures of him on-line, U.S. Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi revealed Wednesday. The ex-Olympian allegedly shared the pictures of the witness who would testify in opposition to him on a now-deleted web site referred to as ‘The Soiled Information’ after he was charged in 2024, Bondi mentioned.

The witness was then shot useless at a restaurant in Medellin, Colombia on January 31.

Federal officers elevated the reward for Wedding ceremony’s arrest to $15 million on Wednesday.

Wedding ceremony, 44, and 14 different alleged associates have been accused of orchestrating the January 2025 homicide of a witness who was shot and killed at a restaurant in Colombia. Officers mentioned Wedding ceremony positioned a bounty on the sufferer’s head, considering their deaths would result in the dismissal of prices in opposition to him and the drug trafficking ring he allegedly heads.

Wedding ceremony is on the FBI’s Ten Most Needed Fugitives record and is described by federal officers as “an especially violent felony believed answerable for the murders of quite a few individuals overseas.”

Wedding ceremony is allegedly answerable for smuggling tons of cocaine by means of Colombia and Mexico to be distributed within the US and Canada, and makes use of cryptocurrency to cover his wealth. The FBI has mentioned Wedding ceremony ordered dozens of killings in North America and Latin America.

Wedding ceremony took half within the 2002 Olympic Video games in Salt Lake Metropolis after lacking the 1998 Video games. They have been the one Olympic Video games wherein he participated.

In his solely occasion, the lads’s parallel large slalom, Wedding ceremony completed in twenty fourth place. The Swiss Philipp Schoch received gold, the Swede Richard Rikardsson received silver and the American Chris Klug bronze.

The FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police allege Wedding ceremony and Clark coordinated a double murder in Ontario in November 2023 involving an harmless couple in a mistaken identification killing, the FBI mentioned.

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Ryan Wedding ceremony of Canada takes a follow run for the lads’s parallel large slalom of the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics in Park Metropolis on February 13, 2002. (REUTERS/Jeff J Mitchell)

Wedding ceremony and Clark are additionally accused of coordinating the homicide of one other individual in Might over a drug debt.

The homicide and felony exercise prices in opposition to Wedding ceremony carry a compulsory minimal sentence of life in federal jail.

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