New condemnation of Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign leader: 3 years and 7 months imprisonment for "conspiracy"

Paul Manafort, former campaign leader of current US President Donald Trump, He will serve more than 7 years in prison after being sentenced today for a second case related to the so-called Russian scheme of tax and banking fraud.

At the hearing held on Wednesday in the District of Columbia, in Manafort He was sentenced to an additional three and a half years, after nearly four years' imprisonment that he had already suffered during another court proceeding last week.

"The accused is not the public enemy number one", but "he is not a victim either," said the judge Federal Amy Berman Jackson in declaring the sentence in court. He added that this veteran Republican lobbyist had shown little repentance and had lied several times.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson pointed out that the former Trump campaign leader had spent much of his career "deceiving the system".

Manafort, 69, must return, in addition, $ 6 million.

Manafort, in fact, he had to resign from Trump's campaign headquarters when it was discovered that he was concealing from the authorities a payment of $ 12.7 million for a council addressed to the deposed Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych. (2010-2014).

When the Justice Department appointed the special prosecutor Robert Mueller in May 2017 to investigate the alleged Kremlin interference in the White House elections of last year, he put the magnifying glbad on the finances of Manafort to compel him to collaborate in the investigation.

Surrounded by the charges against him, Manafort has terminated the signing of a collaboration agreement with Mueller's prosecutors in charge of investigating the Trump campaign in exchange for receiving a reduced sentence in their processes.

However, Mueller broke the agreement by considering that Manafort had lied to him several times., something that Judge Amy Berman Jackson has considered proven and that could add years to the punishment of next week.

The lies against Mueller are not the only obstacle that Manafort has brought to the investigation of the Russian plot and the prosecution against him.

On June 15, 2017, while under house arrest as a result of the first charges, Jackson found him incarcerated for allegedly attempting to influence the charges. statements of other witnesses.

Manafort's fall from grace coincides with that of Michael Cohen, a former Trump lawyer, sentenced to three years in prison for campaigning crimes, sentences with which Mueller reduces the US president's siege.