Double jeopardy fight looms after Manafort pleads not guilty
NEW YORK — Paul Manafort, the imprisoned former chairman of President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, pleaded not guilty Thursday to New York state mortgage fraud charges that could keep him locked up even if Trump pardons him for federal crimes uncovered during the probe of Russian election meddling.
Manafort’s lawyer said he intends to challenge the state case under New York’s strong double jeopardy protections, which bar prosecutors from bringing state charges if a person has received a presidential pardon for federal charges stemming from the same conduct.
“In our views, the laws of New York do not allow the people to do what they did in this case,” Manafort’s lawyer Todd Blanche told reporters after Manafort’s arraignment.
Manafort, in a blue jail uniform and handcuffs, walked with a limp as court officers led him down a public hall to and from the courtroom. He had been transferred last week to a federal detention center in New York for his arraignment in the state case.
Manafort, 70, remained seated as he entered his plea and had to be helped out of his chair when taken out of the courtroom. He used a wheelchair at his last federal sentencing in March because of gout.
Manafort is already serving a 7½-year prison sentence for misleading the U.S. government about his lucrative foreign lobbying work, hiding millions of dollars from tax authorities and encouraging witnesses to lie on his behalf.
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. announced the state charges in March, just minutes after Manafort was sentenced in the second of his two federal cases, saying in a statement at the time: “No one is beyond the law in New York.”
The 16-count New York indictment alleges Manafort gave false and misleading information in applying for residential mortgage loans, starting in 2015 and continuing until three days before Trump’s inauguration in 2017. He is also charged with falsifying business records and conspiracy.
In conjunction with Manafort’s federal convictions, the U.S. government seized two of his Manhattan properties and put them up for sale.