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President Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, 69, has just been given 3.5 more years by a second federal judge who says, he “spent a significant portion of his career gaming the system.” This brings Manafort’s total prison time to 7.5 years for conspiracy counts which including money-laundering, obstruction of justice and failing to disclose lobbying work that earned him tens of millions of dollars over more than a decade. Each charge had a max of 5 years.
“It is hard to overstate the number of lies and the amount of fraud and the amount of money involved,” Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the Federal District Court in Washington said. “There is no question that this defendant knew better and he knew what he was doing.”
Judge Jackson found that one count was closely tied to the same bank and tax fraud scheme that Manafort was sentenced for last week by another judge in Virginia. Those charges were 8 counts of felony tax evasion, bank fraud and failure to disclose a foreign bank account. He was given 47 months. She felt that those punishments should overlap.
On top of those charges, Manafort was charged with mortgage fraud and a dozen other felonies in New York.
Manafort will receive credit for 9 months already spent in jail.
Written by Clarke Jones
Source: New York Times