Manafort Sentenced And Indicted On The Same Day

In d C. Manafort was sentenced to a total of seven and a half years in prison for conspiracy and fraud, and in New York, he was indicted in a new sixteen count indictment, the first charges that are outside President Trump's pardon power. Joining me is Brad Moss, a partner. Mark said, so, Brad, let's begin with the sentencing judge any Berman. Jackson is a tough judge, and she said it's hard to overstate the number of lies Manafort told in the amount of money involved in the charges, but

she didn't give him the maximum. She could have um a little bit. But I think what you've seen now from two different federal judges is they're not all that keen. They don't truly love these sentencing guidelines they've been given when it comes to pure white collar criminal cases. Whether or not that's wise or not, whether it's appropriate or not as not for me to say, but they clearly don't think it's all that altogether justified to go as

harsh as the guidelines recommended. I mean, the recommendation for the witness tampering was five years. And clearly Judge Jackson, who's taken a very harsh approach on this and has been very skeptical of Paul Manafford's explanations, I thought that was way overboard. So, you know, like with any case, you know, there's wild cards. One of the wild card

is going to be the judge. And even though Judge Jackson gave Paul Manaford a far big, you know, harsher tongue lashing than what Judge Ellis did, she did not add too much to the sentence total of seven and a half years between the two federal cases. He could be out by going to be behavior from federal charges. So she was also considering the charges that he had been handed down by Judge Ellis. Correct. So yeah, so it's so part of it was concurrent with what judge

Judge Ellis had done forty seven months. So a portion of what Judge Jackson laid down was concurrent or overlapping, which Judge Ellis got something of the charges were similar and related, but the witness tampering part that was separate, that was being served consecutively. So in total for all federal charges that the seven and a half years now. She made a point of pushing back on the defense attorney's repeated assertions that Manafort was mere collateral damage in

the Special counsel's investigation. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, I mean, this is a political posturing move that the defense lawyers have been doing throughout this case in the one Eastern District of Virginia, trying to kind of appeal through findings to the president's you know, hinting towards, you know, a part in saying, you know, Paul manaforts being prosecutive for things that don't have to do this telling with Russian collusion. Judge Ellis was a little bit more sympathetic

to that argument, at least than a sentencing context. Obviously, neither Judge Allis nor Judge Jackson tossed the cases based off that nor what they have as a matter of law. But Judge Jackson didn't want to hear it. She said, look, these are serious charges. Whether or not it has to do with collusion is irrelevant, and she made clear that the cases, the case brought against Manaport does not resolve one way or the other whether there was Russian collusion,

and no one said it would. Now shall we call it unusual timing convenience? I don't know, But just after the sentencing we learn about the indictment in New York State by Manhattan District Attorneys Cyrus Vance. This has been in the works for some time, but just announced now. Correct from the filing, it appears they got this indictment

last week on the seventh. They were just holding on for it, waiting for the moment for man of fourth sentencing to come down so they could drop this and add on to the pain state charges that are completely

beyond the scope of what Donald Trump can pardon. So even if the President were to pardon Paul Manafort today, which I'm sure he will not be doing, but even if you were to do that, Paul would still face very serious mortgage fraud charges coming out of New York and will obviously face several years in prison from that. So tell us a little bit more about the charges in New York State and how they differ from the

charges that Manafort has faced. Sure, so the facts um overlap a little bit, but the legal aspects of a little difference. So in the federal cases it was about money laundering and tax fraud and registering as a foreign agent, things along those lines. What the State of New York has brought our mortgage fraud charges with respect to the information Paul Manafort was outlining in bank loan documents trying to get mortgages on properties in the state of New York.

You know, anybody who's ever gotten a mortgage knows you fill out that paperwork, you've outline your assets and how much of the property you own, how much is under you know, covered by more existing mortgages. And they are stating that he defrauded the state in how he outlined information in those documents. So, Brad, is this really unusual? Would it be considered piling on if it weren't for the fact that this pardon has been talked about and

dangled around. I mean, the State of New York certainly has its discretion to to have pursued this Either way, I don't know if they would have spent the time to do it if they weren't concerned that the president was going to try to give Paul man afore you know, uh, you know, the easy way out with a part in. So sure, is it a little bit of political action here? Of course? Is that anything new in the United States

America now? And some people may be interested in in finding out just how a person who is serving time in prison then ends up having to defend themselves. How what the logistics are here. Yeah, there's gonna be a lot, you know, it's gonna be a question of does Paul Manafort want to bother showing up at these hearings. He stopped coming once he had been confined to jail. He stopped coming to the hearings in federal court because it's a whole huge process at several hours the time in

transit and then sitting in holding rooms. And for a guy who was once very high on the hog and living in you know, luxury and mansions and you know, big parties with ten thous dollar plate dinners to suddenly just be in the orange jumpsuit sitting next to comic criminals, it's a little bit you know, degrading and I'm sure he doesn't like doing it and the attorneys fees here, any idea what neighborhood there in At this point we only have forty five seconds, so you can just speculate

a little easily. He's looking at hundreds of thousands and additional fees. I'm pretty sure he's going to seek a plea be able to try to minimize that the man has the family still he's at trying to take care of. You can't pay out those kind of fees, all right, Brad, thanks so much for following this with us and for your insights. That's Brad Moss. He's that's a Brad Moss. He's a partner at Mark's State. Thanks for listening to

the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I am June Brosso. This is Bloomberg