Gates explains use of Cyprus shell companies
Manafort’s deputy tells jury how they hid millions from IRS
ALEXANDRIA, VA. — Paul Manafort’s longtime deputy told jurors Tuesday how he spent years disguising millions of dollars in foreign income as loans to lower the former Trump campaign chair’s tax bill.
Rick Gates, the government’s star witness, recounted how he and Manafort used offshore shell companies and bank accounts in Cyprus to funnel the money, all while concealing the accounts and the income from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
“In Cyprus, they were documented as loans. In reality, it was basically money moving between accounts,” he said in his second day of testimony in the financial fraud trial of his former boss.
Prosecutors summoned Gates, described by witnesses as Manafort’s “right-hand man,” to give jurors the first-hand account of a co-conspirator they say helped Manafort carry out an elaborate offshore tax-evasion and bank fraud scheme.
Manafort’s defence attorneys have sought to paint Gates as an embezzler, liar and the instigator of any criminal conduct. They have several times tried to impugn his credibility before the jury.
Gates walked into a packed courtroom a day after he calmly acknowledged having embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from Manafort and said the two had committed crimes together by stashing money in foreign bank accounts and falsifying bank loan documents.
Manafort and Gates were the first two people indicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. But Gates pleaded guilty months later and agreed to co-operate in Mueller’s investigation of Manafort, the only American charged by the special counsel to opt for trial instead of a guilty plea.
Gates, who said he has met with the government 20 times ahead of his testimony, is expected to remain on the stand for several hours Tuesday and then face a bruising cross-examination as defence lawyers try to undercut his credibility and pin the blame on him.
In a reflection of Gates’ importance to the prosecution’s case, a cart with about a half dozen document boxes, bearing his name, was rolled into the courtroom ahead of his testimony.
The faceoff between longtime business associates and former senior members of the Trump campaign drew scores of people who waited in line for hours outside the courthouse and then jammed into both the courtroom and an overflow room, with a video feed of the proceedings.
In early testimony Tuesday, Gates related his role in setting up offshore bank accounts for Manafort, a complex arrangement that was requested by wealthy and powerful Ukrainian businessmen who bankrolled Manafort’s political consulting work in the country.
Gates’ account appeared to bolster the prosecution’s assertions that Manafort was in full control of his finances and directing Gates’ actions. He recounted how Manafort negotiated the offshore payment structure in person with Ukrainian oligarchs, and then Gates would then codify the details in writing.
Gates also told jurors that after the money from their Ukrainian political consulting work dried up in 2014, the two men tried to earn money from a new opposition party that was formed, but payments were slow to come.
“Mr. Manafort was quite upset he had not been paid,” Gates told jurors, as he walked them through an email chain in which his Ukrainian partners sought to mollify Manafort with a partial payment
In earlier testimony Monday, Gates read off the names of more than a dozen shell companies he and Manafort set up in Cyprus, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the United Kingdom to stash the proceeds of Manafort’s Ukrainian political consulting work.
Gates told jurors that he and Manafort didn’t report the income or the foreign bank accounts containing millions of dollars to the IRS, noting that he knew they were committing crimes each time. He also admitted to falsifying loan applications and other documents to help Manafort obtain more in bank loans.
In addition to those crimes, Gates revealed other criminal conduct.
Gates, who is awaiting sentencing, told jurors he siphoned off the money without Manafort’s knowledge by filing false expense reports. He also committed credit card and mortgage fraud, falsified a letter for a colleague involved in an investment deal and made false statements in a deposition at Manafort’s direction.
The case against Manafort has nothing to do with either man’s work for the Trump campaign and there’s been no discussion during the trial about whether the Trump campaign co-ordinated with Russia — the central question Mueller’s team has tried to answer. But Donald Trump has shown interest in the proceedings, tweeting support for Manafort and suggesting he had been treated worse than gangster Al Capone.
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, who has clashed with prosecutors as he urged them to hurry up presenting their case, has largely allowed the prosecution to question Gates uninterrupted.