The following article by Josh Gerstein was posted on the Politico website February 16, 2018:
Prosecutors say they’ve found ‘additional criminal conduct’ by the former Trump campaign chairman.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s office has told a federal judge it has found evidence that Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, committed bank fraud not addressed by the indictment last October in which he was charged with money laundering and failure to register as a foreign agent.
As legal wrangling continues over a $10 million bail package for Manafort, prosecutors this week accused him of submitting false information to a bank in connection with at least one of his mortgages.
“The proposed package is deficient in the government’s view, in light of additional criminal conduct that we have learned since the Court’s initial bail determination,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing submitted on Tuesday and made public in a redacted form on Friday evening. “That criminal conduct includes a series of bank frauds and bank fraud conspiracies.”
No criminal charges are known to have been filed over the alleged fraud, and Mueller’s office does not say in the filing whether it intends to bring any.
The filing by Mueller’s office says Manafort obtained a mortgage using “doctored profit and loss statements” overstating “by millions of dollars” the income for his consulting company, DMP International. Prosecutors appear to be referring to a $9.5 million mortgage that Federal Savings Bank of Chicago extended in late 2016 to a Manafort-linked firm, Summerbreeze LLC.
Prosecutors’ references to “conspiracies” suggest that someone beyond Manafort was involved in the alleged fraud, but no further details were given.
Defense attorneys for Manafort did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday. Lawyers and the defendants are under a gag order imposed by U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, limiting their out-of-court statements about the case.
A report in The Wall Street Journal last year said investigators from the office of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman were examining loans that Manafort obtained in connection with various real estate transactions, including mortgages issued by Federal Savings Bank. That and other articles also noted that the bank’s chairman, Stephen Calk, was an economic adviser to the Trump campaign.
A spokeswoman for the bank did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Friday night.
Manafort has been under house arrest at his condominium in Alexandria, Virginia, since he was indicted in October along with Rick Gates, a business partner and Trump campaign deputy.
Jackson has signaled a willingness to release Manafort in exchange for $10 million in security, but prosecutors, the judge and defense lawyers have been at odds for months over various formulations Manafort has proposed to post that collateral. The latest proposal involves two properties in New York, including a Trump Tower condo, as well as Virginia real estate in Arlington and Fairfax counties.
Jackson met with both sides behind closed doors for more than an hour on Wednesday to discuss the bail issue, but there was no indication of any resolution.
The judge has yet to set a trial date in the case, but she suggested last month that a trial starting in September or October might be feasible.
View the post here.