Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort sentenced to 47 months for tax and bank fraud

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort sentenced to 47 months for tax and bank fraud. </s> ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been sentenced to 47 months in prison for tax and bank fraud related to his work advising Ukrainian politicians.

Judge T.S. Ellis III imposed the sentence Thursday, capping the only jury trial following indictments stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

A jury last year convicted Manafort on eight counts, concluding that he hid from the Internal Revenue Service millions of dollars he earned from his work in Ukraine.

Federal sentencing guidelines had called for a term of roughly 20 years, but few observers had expected he would receive a sentence that long.

Manafort still faces sentencing in the District of Columbia, where he pleaded guilty in a separate case connected to illegal lobbying. </s> ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — The Latest on Paul Manafort's trial on tax evasion and bank fraud charges (all times local):

Prosecutors say President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman orchestrated a multimillion-dollar conspiracy to evade U.S. tax and banking laws, leaving behind a trail of lies as he lived a lavish lifestyle.

The allegations came during opening statements Tuesday in the Paul Manafort trial. It's the first trial to stem from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into potential ties between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Uzo Asonye told the jury that Manafort considered himself above the law as he funneled tens of millions of dollars through offshore accounts to pay for personal expenses such as a $21,000 watch and a $15,000 jacket made of ostrich.

The comments were the first volley in the bank fraud and tax evasion trial. It is expected to last several weeks.

A jury has been seated in the trial of President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, on tax evasion and bank fraud charges.

Six men and six women, along with four alternate jurors, were chosen on Tuesday. Opening statements were expected later in the afternoon.

Manafort, who is already in custody and could spend the rest of his life in jail, appeared in the federal courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia, in a dark suit with his wife, Kathleen.

It's the first trial to result from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into potential ties between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia. Prosecutors are not expected to address the question of collusion, but Manafort's case is widely viewed as a test to the legitimacy of Mueller's probe, which Trump has called a "witch hunt."

Jury selection is underway in the trial of Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman.

Dozens of jurors packed a federal courtroom Tuesday in Alexandria, Virginia, to face questions from a judge and lawyers about whether they can be fair and impartial.

The trial is the first arising from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into potential ties between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia. But that isn't a focus of this trial.

Manafort is accused of failing to report tens of millions of dollars in Ukrainian political consulting fees and using that money to fund a lavish lifestyle.

Manafort, who is in custody, sat quietly with his defense lawyers. He was dressed in a suit, not jail attire.

Jury selection is set to begin in the trial of President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman.

Paul Manafort will appear Tuesday in federal court in Virginia for the first trial arising from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Manafort is accused of concealing tens of millions of dollars in income from the IRS and fraudulently obtaining millions more in bank loans.

The trial will give the public the most detailed glimpse yet into a part of the Mueller investigation. It also comes as Trump and his lawyers have dialed up the intensity in their attacks on Mueller.

This is the first of two trials for Manafort. The second trial, scheduled for September in the District of Columbia, involves allegations that he acted as an unregistered foreign agent for Ukrainian interests. </s> March 13 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s former presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been indicted in New York on fresh charges of residential mortgage fraud, state prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Shortly after Manafort’s sentencing on federal conspiracy charges in Washington, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance announced that the indictment was filed in state Supreme Court last Thursday. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Tim Ahmann) </s> Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Paul Manafort was found guilty of multiple fraud charges in 2018

Donald Trump's former election campaign chief Paul Manafort breached his plea deal with special counsel Robert Mueller by lying to prosecutors, a US judge says.

US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that Manafort "made multiple false statements" to the FBI, Mr Mueller's office and a grand jury.

Mr Mueller leads a probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election.

Manafort has pleaded guilty to some charges, avoiding a separate trial.

He was convicted of financial fraud in August, relating to his work as a political consultant in Ukraine.

He then accepted a plea deal on other charges in return for co-operating with Mr Mueller's investigation.

In her ruling on Wednesday, Judge Berman Jackson said there was evidence that showed Manafort had lied about three different topics, including his contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian political consultant. Prosecutors claim Mr Kilimnik had ties to Russian intelligence.

However, the judge cleared Manafort, 69, of allegations that he lied on two other subjects.

The verdict means that Manafort - who has been held in a detention centre in Virginia since June - could now potentially face harsher sentences or have charges against him re-filed.

Last year, Mr Mueller said that Manafort lied "on a variety of subject matters" after signing the plea deal.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Donald Trump: "I feel very badly for Paul Manafort"

What was the plea deal?

Last August, Manafort was convicted on eight counts of fraud, bank fraud and failing to disclose bank accounts.

A month later he pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy against the US and one charge of conspiracy to obstruct justice in a plea bargain with Mr Mueller. The agreement avoided a second trial on money laundering and other charges.

The plea deal meant Manafort would face up to 10 years in prison and would forfeit four of his properties and the contents of several bank accounts - but deadlocked charges from the previous trial would be dismissed.

It was the first criminal trial arising from the Department of Justice's investigation into alleged Russian interference in the presidential election.

However, the charges related only to Manafort's political consulting with pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine, largely pre-dating his role with the Trump campaign.

How did we get here?

Manafort worked for the Trump presidential campaign for five months in 2016 and was in charge when Mr Trump clinched the Republican party nomination.

President Trump has branded the Mueller investigation a "witch hunt" and insisted there was no collusion between his team and Russia.

Manafort was charged by Mr Mueller last October and during the trial he was accused of using 31 foreign bank accounts in three different countries to evade taxes on millions of dollars.

Prosecutors presented evidence of Manafort's luxurious lifestyle, saying it was only possible because of his bank and tax fraud. </s> President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was indicted Wednesday by a state grand jury in New York on charges of residential mortgage fraud — the announcement coming just minutes after Manafort was sentenced in federal court in Washington to more than seven years in prison.

[Read the indictment: The People of the State of New York against Paul J. Manafort Jr.]

The charges filed against Manafort may stand as a kind of prosecutorial insurance policy against a possible presidential pardon — a scenario that Trump has refused to discuss as Manafort’s case worked its way through the federal court system. The president has called Manafort brave for fighting his case against special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“No one is beyond the law in New York,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said in a statement announcing the indictment. “Following an investigation commenced by our office in March 2017, a Manhattan grand jury has charged Mr. Manafort with state criminal violations which strike at the heart of New York’s sovereign interests, including the integrity of our residential mortgage market.”

[Paul Manafort sentenced to a total of 7.5 years in prison for conspiracy, fraud]

The state charges could be challenged in the courts as a violation of double jeopardy protections for defendants, an area in which current New York law may favor Manafort.

The mortgage fraud charges stem from the same conduct that led to Manafort’s federal conviction — that he allegedly submitted false information to banks while seeking loans. The 16-count indictment accuses him of residential mortgage fraud, attempted residential mortgage fraud, falsifying business records, scheming to defraud and conspiracy. </s> Special Counsel Robert Mueller filed a 32-count indictment Thursday hitting former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and aide Rick Gates with fresh charges of tax evasion and bank fraud.

Manafort is specifically charged with five counts related to filing false income tax returns and four counts of failure to report foreign bank and financial accounts. Gates is accused of 11 counts related to filing false income tax returns and three counts of failure to report foreign bank and financial accounts. Both men are accused of nine counts of bank fraud and conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

Prosecutors claim the men doctored financial documents, lied to tax preparers and defrauded banks -- using money they cycled through offshore accounts to spend lavishly, including on real estate, interior decorating and other luxury goods.

The new indictment comes a week after Mueller filed charges against 13 Russians, accusing them of a vast conspiracy to undermine the U.S. presidential election.



The charges against Manafort and Gates don't relate to any allegations of misconduct related to Trump's campaign, though Mueller is continuing to investigate potential ties to the Kremlin.

Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni said in a statement that the former Trump campaign chairman is innocent and stressed that the charges "have nothing to do with Russia and 2016 election interference/collusion."



Manafort "is confident that he will be acquitted of all charges," Maloni said.



Manafort and Gates were initially charged in a 12-count indictment last October that accused them of a multimillion-dollar money-laundering conspiracy tied to their foreign lobbying work. They are accused of directing a covert Washington lobbying campaign on behalf of pro-Russian Ukrainian interests. Manafort and Gates pleaded not guilty to the initial charges.

The charges against Manafort and Gates arise from their foreign lobbying and efforts that prosecutors say they made to conceal their income by disguising it as loans from offshore companies. More recently, after their Ukrainian work dwindled, the indictment also accuses them of fraudulently obtaining more than $20 million in loans from financial institutions.



The new indictment increases the amount of money Manafort, with the assistance of Gates, is accused of laundering to $30 million. It also charges Manafort and Gates with filing false tax returns from 2010 through 2014 and in most of those years concealing their foreign bank accounts from the IRS.



The new indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va. It leaves open the possibility that Manafort or Gates could face additional state charges of filing false tax returns.

In a document that accompanied the new indictment, prosecutors said they had filed the charges in Virginia, rather than Washington where the other case is pending, because the alleged conduct occurred there and one of the defendants objected to them being brought in Washington.

The indictment comes amid ongoing turmoil in the Manafort and Gates defense camps. Manafort has been unable to reach an agreement with prosecutors over the terms of his bail and remains under house arrest, while Gates's lawyers withdrew from the case after acknowledging "irreconcilable differences" with their client. A new lawyer, Thomas Green, entered an appearance Thursday on Gates's behalf.



Mueller was appointed in May to investigate potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. He took over an ongoing FBI investigation into Manafort's foreign lobbying work.



After a two-month stretch that produced no charges, the new indictment is part of a flurry of activity for Mueller's team within the past week.



Besides the charges against the Russians, Mueller's team on Tuesday unsealed a guilty plea from a Dutch lawyer who admitted he lied to investigators about his contacts with Gates.



Manafort and Gates, who also worked on Trump's campaign, both pleaded not guilty after their indictment last fall.



Two other people who aided Trump in the campaign or in the White House -- former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos -- have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about their foreign contacts. Neither man has been sentenced. Both are cooperating with the investigation.



Mueller is also examining whether Trump obstructed justice through actions including the firing last May of FBI Director James Comey. His team has expressed interest in interviewing the president.



Fox News' Jake Gibson and Jon Decker contributed to this report. The Associated Press also contributed to this report. </s> Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been indicted in New York on state charges, seen as a strategy for preventing a potential presidential pardon.

An indictment unsealed Wednesday in Manhattan accuses the 69-year-old Manafort of conducting a yearlong residential mortgage fraud scheme that netted millions of dollars.

The indictment filed March 7 was unsealed the same day Manafort was sentenced in Washington in the second of two federal cases against him.

He would serve more than seven years in prison in those cases. Trump has repeatedly defended him and floated the idea of granting a pardon, but would not be able to do so in a state case. </s> Paul Manafort, the longtime political operative who served as chairman of President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, is expected to be sentenced Thursday in Virginia federal court on tax and bank fraud charges.

Federal guidelines call for Manafort, 69, to spend 19-and-a-half to 24 years in prison, though the judge is free to impose a sentence below that range. In a sentencing memo to Judge T.S. Ellis last month, prosecutors called the charges against Manafort "serious, longstanding, and bold," adding that the offenses were so serious that "the government has not located a comparable case with the unique array of crimes and aggravating factors."

"Manafort acted for more than a decade as if he were above the law, and deprived the federal government and various financial institutions of millions of dollars,” prosecutors for special counsel Robert Mueller wrote in the memo. “The sentence here should reflect the seriousness of these crimes.”

In August, a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, convicted Manafort on five counts of tax fraud, one count of failure to file a report of foreign bank and financial accounts and two counts of bank fraud. The judge, however, declared a mistrial on the 10 other charges he faced.

None of the charges involved Manafort's work on the Trump campaign in 2016. Though the trial was the first public test of Mueller's probe, the charges had nothing to do with Mueller's main task as special counsel — to discover whether anyone in the U.S. was helping Russia interfere in the election.

Prosecutors built a case that Manafort for years hid millions from U.S. tax authorities in overseas accounts, spending the money to maintain a lavish lifestyle and lying to banks to generate more cash.

Manafort also faces a second sentencing hearing in federal court in Washington, D.C., on March 13.

The judge in that case, Amy Berman Jackson, must decide if Manafort, who turns 70 in April, will serve the two sentences at the same time or whether they must be served consecutively.

In that case, he pleaded guilty in September to two new counts, admitted his guilt to the 10 outstanding counts the Virginia trial and agreed to cooperate with special counsel prosecutors in a deal that would have made him eligible for a lighter sentence. He also agreed to forfeit multiple bank accounts and properties, including his apartment in Trump Tower. However, Judge Jackson since agreed with investigators' assessment that Manafort lied to them in order to protect a Russian conspirator.

As such, the cooperation deal is off, and he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is found guilty on eight charges for false tax returns and bank fraud.