Judge orders Paul Manafort to move to Alexandria Prison, but he asks to remain in a remote detention center

A federal judge in Alexandria has ordered Paul Manafort City Prison to prepare his next trial on charges of bank and tax fraud. But Manafort is fighting, saying that he wants to stay in a jail 100 miles in Virginia's Northern Neck.

Manafort, who served as president of President Trump's campaign for several months, last week called for his July 25 trial in Alexandria. The court was postponed until this fall, saying that his incarceration at the Northern Neck Regional Jail made preparation too difficult. He also wanted the trial to be transferred to Roanoke

Now, the defense says that moving Manafort to Alexandria would be more difficult than leaving it where it is

"Given the continued detention of Mr. Manafort and Mr. distance and inconvenience must give way to its security and, more importantly, to the challenges it will face in adapting to a new place of detention and changing conditions of detention two weeks before the trial. "" In view of these considerations, Mr. Manafort respectfully requests the Court to allow him to remain in his current place of detention. "

Judge TS Ellis issued the order Tuesday, while saying that he would give special advocate prosecutor Manafort until Friday to weigh on whether the trial would be moved or delayed.

Manafort's lawyers wrote in a filing last week that the trip two hours to the Northern Neck and the restrictions on electronic or telephone communications there "made meetings. . . to prepare his defense much rarer and a lot of time. "

The government gave them about 2 million pages of documents to examine, they said, tens of thousands of them appeared in recent months.

Defense lawyers have said that the distance and the limitations made it impossible to prepare adequately for the trial and demanded that the case be postponed until this fall, after Manafort faces related charges in Federal Court D. The judge in this case, Amy Berman Jackson , ordered Manafort to be jailed last month after being accused of attempting to persuade potential witnesses to lie at the bar.

Manafort also asked Virginia's lawsuit to Roanoke, saying that the Virginians of the North were too overwhelmed with information about the case and too hostile to the Trump administration to give him a fair trial.