Manafort checks into the VIP area at Virginia jail
The Northern Neck Regional Jail, where Paul Manafort will spend at least the next three months while awaiting trial, has the outward appearance of being a small local jail holding street thugs and assorted misdemeanants.
But it also houses federal prisoners awaiting trial, including a member of the Taliban and a feared Colombian drug lord. And it held NFL standout Michael Vick and musician Chris Brown in recent years.
The jail is notable for another reason: Four inmates have died there since 2011.
In one of those deaths, a 32-year-old female inmate who suffered a stroke in 2016 was denied medical care for more than 10 hours and was declared brain dead later that night. The woman’s family sued six jail officials for wrongful death, also alleging that the jail tried to cover up its actions. In November, the defendants paid the woman’s two juvenile daughters a $375,000 settlement, court records show.
Manafort, 69, has been indicted on charges in what prosecutors say was a broad conspiracy to launder more than $30 million over a decade of undisclosed lobbying for a proRussian former politician and party in Ukraine.
He was taken into custody Friday after U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson revoked his pretrial release conditions pending trial in Washington because he allegedly contacted witnesses in the case.
But rather than place him in the District of Columbia or Alexandria, Virginia, jails, where local federal prisoners are often housed, Manafort was driven 90 miles southeast to the Northern Neck jail in Warsaw, Virginia, not far from the banks of the Rappahhanock River.
Jail records show Manafort was booked into the “VIP” section of the jail at 8:22 p.m. Friday.