Happy Birthday!!! FROM JAIL

mentalfloss

mentalfloss

Prickly Curmudgeon Smiter
Jun 28, 2010
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:lol:


Federal judge jails ex-Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort ahead of trial

WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is going to jail.

On Friday, Manafort was ordered into custody after a federal judge revoked his house arrest, citing newly filed obstruction of justice charges. The move by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson made Manafort the first Trump campaign official to be jailed as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

Already under intense pressure to co-operate with prosecutors in hopes of securing leniency, Manafort now loses the relative freedom he enjoyed while he prepared for two criminal trials in which he faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison.

In issuing her ruling, Jackson said she had "struggled" with the decision but she couldn't "turn a blind eye" to his conduct.

"You have abused the trust placed in you six months ago," she said.

A federal grand jury indicted Manafort and a longtime associate, Konstantin Kilimnik, last week on charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice, adding to the multiple felony counts he already faced. The charges do not relate to his work on the Trump campaign or involve allegations of Russian election interference.

Manafort, 69, and Kilimnik are accused of attempting to tamper with witnesses in the case by trying to get them to lie about the nature of their Ukrainian political work. Prosecutors say Manafort and Kilimnik tried to get the two witnesses to say that lobbying work carried out by clandestinely paid former politicians only occurred in Europe and not the U.S., a contention the two witnesses said they knew to be false.

The distinction matters because unregistered foreign lobbying in the U.S. is a crime, while lobbying solely in Europe would be outside the special counsel's jurisdiction.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/world...-chair-paul-manafort-ahead-of-trial-1.3975130
 
gopher

gopher

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Minnesota: Gopher State
Federal judge jails ex-Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort ahead of trial
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H

Hoid

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Oct 15, 2017
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its perfectly natural for campaign managers to get indicted for various crimes, be released on bail and then indicted again for tampering with the witnesses to their first indictments.

Thats just politics.
 
spaminator

spaminator

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Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort sentenced to 47 months in prison
Associated Press
Published:
March 7, 2019
Updated:
March 7, 2019 10:08 PM EST
In this April 4, 2018 file photo, Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, leaves the federal courthouse in Washington.(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)Andrew Harnik / AP
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was sentenced Thursday to nearly four years in prison for tax and bank fraud related to his work advising Ukrainian politicians, much less than what was called for under sentencing guidelines.
Manafort, sitting in a wheelchair as he deals with complications from gout, had no visible reaction as he heard the 47-month sentence. While that was the longest sentence to date to come from special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, it could have been much worse for Manafort. Sentencing guidelines called for a 20-year-term, effectively a lifetime sentence for the 69-year-old.
This courtroom sketch depicts former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, centre in a wheelchair, during his sentencing hearing in federal court before judge T.S. Ellis III in Alexandria, Va., Thursday, March 7, 2019. (Dana Verkouteren via AP)
Manafort has been jailed since June, so he will receive credit for the nine months he has already served. He still faces the possibility of additional time from his sentencing in a separate case in the District of Columbia, where he pleaded guilty to charges related to illegal lobbying.
Before Judge T.S. Ellis III imposed the sentence, Manafort told him that “saying I feel humiliated and ashamed would be a gross understatement.” But he offered no explicit apology, something Ellis noted before issuing his sentence.
Manafort steered Donald Trump’s election efforts during crucial months of the 2016 campaign as Russia sought to meddle in the election through hacking of Democratic email accounts. He was among the first Trump associates charged in the Mueller investigation and has been a high-profile defendant.
But the charges against Manafort were unrelated to his work on the campaign or the focus of Mueller’s investigation: whether the Trump campaign co-ordinated with Russians.
A jury last year convicted Manafort on eight counts, concluding that he hid from the IRS millions of dollars he earned from his work in Ukraine.
Manafort’s lawyers argued that their client had engaged in what amounted to a routine tax evasion case, and cited numerous past sentences in which defendants had hidden millions from the IRS and served less than a year in prison.
Prosecutors said Manafort’s conduct was egregious, but Ellis ultimately agreed more with defence attorneys. “These guidelines are quite high,” Ellis said.
Neither prosecutors nor defence attorneys had requested a particular sentence length in their sentencing memoranda, but prosecutors had urged a “significant” sentence.
Outside court, Manafort’s lawyer, Kevin Downing, said his client accepted responsibility for his conduct “and there was absolutely no evidence that Mr. Manafort was involved in any collusion with the government of Russia.”
Prosecutors left the courthouse without making any comment.
Though Manafort hasn’t faced charges related to collusion, he has been seen as one of the most pivotal figures in the Mueller investigation. Prosecutors, for instance, have scrutinized his relationship with Konstantin Kilimnik, a business associate U.S. authorities say is tied to Russian intelligence, and have described a furtive meeting the men had in August 2016 as cutting to the heart of the investigation.
After pleading guilty in the D.C. case, Manafort met with investigators for more than 50 hours as part of a requirement to co-operate with the probe. But prosecutors reiterated at Thursday’s hearing that they believe Manafort was evasive and untruthful in his testimony to a grand jury.
Manafort was wheeled into the courtroom about 3:45 p.m. in a green jumpsuit from the Alexandria jail, where he spent the last several months in solitary confinement. The jet black hair he bore in 2016 when serving as campaign chairman was gone, replaced by a shaggy grey. He spent much of the hearing hunched at the shoulders, bearing what appeared to be an air of resignation.
Defence lawyers had argued that Manafort would never have been charged if it were not for Mueller’s probe. At the outset of the trial, even Ellis agreed with that assessment, suggesting Manafort was being prosecuted only to pressure him to “sing” against Trump. Prosecutors said the Manafort investigation preceded Mueller’s appointment.
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani echoed the defence argument Thursday night, saying: “I feel terrible about the way Manafort has been treated to this point. I think it’s not American to keep a man in solitary confinement to try to crack him.”
Giuliani said he hadn’t spoken to the president about Manafort’s sentence.
Manafort was convicted of eight felonies related to tax and bank fraud charges for hiding foreign income from his work in Ukraine from the IRS and later inflating his income on bank loan applications. Prosecutors have said the work in Ukraine was on behalf of politicians who were closely aligned with Russia, though Manafort insisted his work helped those politicians distance themselves from Russia and align with the West.
In arguing for a significant sentence, prosecutor Greg Andres said Manafort still hasn’t accepted responsibility for his misconduct.
“His sentencing positions are replete with blaming others,” Andres said. He also said Manafort still has not provided a full account of his finances for purposes of restitution, a particularly egregious omission given that his crime involved hiding more than $55 million in overseas bank accounts to evade paying more than $6 million in federal income taxes.
The lack of certainty about Manafort’s finances complicated the judge’s efforts to impose restitution, but Ellis ultimately ordered that Manafort could be required to pay back up to $24 million.
In the D.C. case, Manafort faces up to five years in prison on each of two counts to which he pleaded guilty. The judge will have the option to impose any sentence there concurrent or consecutive to the sentence imposed by Ellis.
http://torontosun.com/news/world/fo...aul-manafort-sentenced-to-47-months-in-prison
 
spaminator

spaminator

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Paul Manafort given more years in prison, then faces fresh N.Y. charges
Associated Press
Published:
March 13, 2019
Updated:
March 13, 2019 6:45 PM EDT
WASHINGTON — Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was sentenced to a total of seven and a half years in prison on federal charges Wednesday, then was hit almost immediately with fresh state charges in New York that could put him outside the president’s power to pardon.
In Washington, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson brushed aside Manafort’s pleas for leniency and rebuked him for misleading the U.S. government about his lucrative foreign lobbying work and for encouraging witnesses to lie on his behalf.
“It is hard to overstate the number of lies and the amount of fraud and the extraordinary amount of money involved” in the crimes, Jackson told Manafort, 69, who sat stone-faced in a wheelchair he has used because of gout. She added three-and-a-half years on top of the nearly four-year sentence Manafort received last week in a separate case in Virginia, though he’ll get credit for nine months already served.
The sentencing hearing was a milestone in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible co-ordination between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election campaign. Manafort was among the first people charged in the investigation, and though the allegations did not relate to his work for candidate Donald Trump, his foreign entanglements and business relationship with an associate the U.S. says has ties to Russian intelligence have made him a pivotal figure in the probe.
Prosecutors are updating judges this week on the co-operation provided by other key defendants in the case . Mueller is expected to soon conclude his investigation in a confidential report to the Justice Department.
Minutes after Manafort’s federal sentence was imposed, New York prosecutors unsealed a 16-count indictment accusing him of giving false information on mortgage loan applications. The new case appeared designed at least in part to protect against the possibility that Trump could pardon Manafort, who led the celebrity businessman’s 2016 White House bid for months. The president can pardon federal crimes but not state offences.
New York’s attorney general’s office had looked into whether it could bring state-level crimes against Manafort but faced a possible roadblock because of the state’s double jeopardy law . That statute goes beyond most other states by preventing state-level charges that mirror federal counts that have been resolved — and also prevents prosecutors from pursuing state-level charges when a person has been pardoned for the same federal crimes.
Still, Manhattan prosecutors, who brought the new indictment, contend their case is safe because mortgage fraud and falsifying business records are state but not federal crimes.
At the White House, Trump said he felt “very badly” for Manafort but hadn’t given any thought to a pardon. “No collusion,” the president added.
On Wednesday, Judge Jackson made clear the case against Manafort had nothing to do with Russian election interference and she scolded Manafort’s lawyers for asserting that their client was charged only because prosecutors couldn’t get him on crimes related to potential collusion with the Trump campaign.
“The no-collusion mantra is simply a non sequitur,” she said, suggesting that those arguments were meant for an audience outside the courtroom — presumably the president.
The judge said conspiracy charges concerning Manafort’s unregistered foreign lobbying work and witness tampering were “not just some failure to comply with some pesky regulations” as his attorneys argued.
Instead, she said they were evidence that Manafort had spent a considerable portion of his career “gaming the system.” He undermined the American political process by concealing from the public and Congress that he was working on behalf of Ukraine— and earning millions of dollars that he never reported to the IRS, she said.
“Court is one of those places where facts still matter,” she said.
Reading from a three-page statement, Manafort asked for mercy and said the criminal charges against him had “taken everything from me already.” He pleaded with the judge not to impose any additional time beyond the sentence he had received last week in a separate case in Virginia.
“I am sorry for what I have done and all the activities that have gotten us here today,” he said in a steady voice. “While I cannot undo the past, I will ensure that the future will be very different.”
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort sentenced to 47 months in prison
Mueller memo: Paul Manafort ‘brazenly violated the law’ for years
Manafort said he was the primary caregiver for his wife and wanted the chance for them to resume their life together.
“She needs me and I need her. I ask you to think of this and our need for each other as you deliberate,” he said. “This case has taken everything from me already — my properties, my cash, my life insurance, my trust accounts for my children and my grandchildren, and more.”
His plea for leniency followed prosecutor Andrew Weissmann’s scathing characterization of crimes that the government said spanned more than a decade and continued even while Manafort was awaiting trial. The prosecutor said Manafort took steps to conceal his foreign lobbying work, laundered millions of dollars to fund a lavish lifestyle and then, while under house arrest, coached other witnesses to lie on his behalf.
“He engaged in crime again and again. He has not learned a harsh lesson. He has served to undermine, not promote American ideals of honesty … and playing by the rules,” Weissmann said.
Defence lawyer Kevin Downing suggested Manafort was being unduly punished because of a “media frenzy” generated by the appointment of a special counsel.
After the hearing, Downing criticized Jackson’s sentencing as he competed with shouting protesters.
“I think the judge showed that she is incredibly hostile toward Mr. Manafort and exhibited a level of callousness that I’ve not seen in a white-collar case in over 15 years of prosecutions,” Downing said.
http://torontosun.com/news/crime/paul-manafort-given-3-1-2-more-years-of-prison-time
 
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