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As a federal judge on Friday, February 8, the date of sentencing to Paul Manafort, the government was allowed to start depriving him of his illegal gains related to tax evasion and lobbying offenses, for a total amount of $ 15 million, unsealed. court records indicate.
A court order last week allowed the US Department of Justice to immediately begin seizing money and property that Manafort agreed to confiscate after confessing to cheating the Internal Revenue Service, evading the requirements in lobbying disclosure and attempting to manipulate witnesses in his trial.
"With the agreement of the parties, the government will take custody and control" of the Manafort Trump Tower condo in New York and a house in the Hamptons, where he spent more than $ 2 million for a home entertainment system and a bed of red flowers in the form of an "M" – starting the "or after" Saturday, the court ordered. Other assets to be confiscated include the contents of four bank and life insurance accounts and a condo in Manhattan's Chinatown.
The six-page filing, written by US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, follows Manafort's guilty plea on September 14 in Washington for conspiracy to defraud the United States and to testify to the falsification of more people. A decade of work for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine. The ordinance gives lenders 30 days to request changes in order to resolve any debts or interest that they may hold on the property that the government will seize.
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The importance of Manafort's fortune was not fully revealed during his plea in Washington or at his federal trial in Virginia, where a jury found him guilty of eight counts of bank fraud and tax evasion. A review of unsealed court records in August and public land records indicate that he will be forced to surrender about $ 15 million under a plea agreement that he concluded "for s & # 39; To ensure that his family stays safe and leads a good life, "said his lawyer, Kevin Downing. at the time.
Manafort's lawyers have given the courts various estimates of his net worth during his lawsuits by special advocate Robert S. Mueller III. They had set it at $ 28 million at the end of last year, during discussions to try to get a bond. In their closing arguments in late August to federal jurors in the Alexandria case, the attorneys claimed that he had a net worth of $ 21 million by the end of 2016.
Manafort's Virginia convictions do not include a confiscation requirement, making Jackson's decision compelling. On Friday, US District Judge T.S. Ellis III of Alexandria imposed the February sentence on eight convictions. The Virginia jury, in stalemate over 10 more charges, was dismissed by Ellis on Friday.
[Manafort will cooperate with Mueller as part of guilty plea, prosecutor says]
The Court's records do not indicate the dollar amount that Manafort must abandon.
Rather, they argue that his lawyers and the government have agreed that seven confiscated assets "represent property that is or is derived from the proceeds of, and property that is involved in, criminal offenses".
The value for the government will ultimately be determined when Manafort real estate is sold.
However, the total appears to be close to the $ 16 million that the FBI forensic accounting experts at the Virginia trial testified, resulting in net undeclared income.
According to some initial estimates in the press accounts, the total amount of sales would have been $ 22 million, citing the resale value of Manafort's properties calculated through Zillow, the online real estate company. Other press accounts added about $ 24 million in hidden revenue that Manafort admitted to advocacy papers, accepting foreign transfers for fake loans and vendor payments.
Most of Manafort's properties appear to be heavily mortgaged or otherwise encumbered.
The online property in New York and the Federal Court Records show that Manafort owes more to three of its properties than its estimated market value of $ 10 million to Zillow – its $ 3 million condo and 1,500 square feet located on the 43rd floor of the Trump Tower; a four-storey brownstone and two units in Brooklyn valued at $ 4.2 million; and a $ 3.1 million loft at SoHo.
Manafort's lawyers in court have claimed $ 4 million in equity in the 10-bedroom, 12-bedroom Water Mill residence near Bridgehampton and $ 3.7 million in a three-bedroom condo and three bathrooms located in the Chinatown neighborhood of New York. condominium of Manaforts and a girl.
These values were submitted to the court with the agreement of the prosecutors and approved by Jackson in December to secure a set of pre-trial release measures of $ 10 million that has never been finalized. Both parties also agreed to include a value of $ 2.6 million in a life insurance policy, the same contract that Manafort is now required to waive, accounting for about $ 10.3 million of dollars.
[Manafort convicted on 8 counts; mistrial declared on 10 others]
The confiscation order also lists all funds seized in two bank accounts, as well as any funds or assets that may be located on a third bank account. No dollar value is listed. However, an unsealed FBI affidavit after the Manafort trial in Virginia at the request of news outlets, including the Washington Post, showed that US investigators had obtained court approval to seize $ 5.1 million on three Manafort accounts in accordance with those described in the confiscation order. The affidavit was dated the day that Manafort was indicted on October 27, 2017.
Adding $ 5.1 million to the real estate value of $ 10.3 million, we get a total of just over $ 15 million for possible confiscation.
Spokespeople at Manafort and Mueller's office declined to comment on an estimate of the count of confiscations.
The actual selling prices of properties will depend on the timing, market conditions and assets. Manafort's outstanding secured debt may also differ from published amounts due to errors, undisclosed or more recent changes, or other reasons, including payments made by Manafort.
"Calculation is calculation, properties are worth what they are worth," said Patrick Cotter, former federal prosecutor in Chicago. "But if there are mortgages, liens, depreciations, the markets go up and the markets go down – it's not uncommon for parties in a deal to disagree," he said. declared.
The investigators may also have entered other accounts, or the actual amount recovered could have been more or less important than anticipated or reduced by trading based on facts revealed during a lawsuit and before Manafort, 69 years old, pleaded guilty.
Manafort agreed not to seek leniency to release him from his financial obligations and allowed the government to pursue his assets in civil or other proceedings where he was pardoned.
Manafort was allowed to keep his $ 1.3 million, five-bedroom home and his wife in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., And to replace his own Trump Tower condo with another owned investment account. to Charles Schwab, in co-ownership with his wife. He was also allowed to replace the Chinatown condo in order to preserve a debt free house in Arlington that he had bought for one of his daughters.
"It's important to note that even criminals sometimes earn honest money," Cotter said. "The goal is not to make the perpetrators penniless. The goal is to recover all the money you can prove that he got wrong, "he said.
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