Judge moves Manafort to another jail to prepare for trial.
WASHINGTON >> A federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, has ordered Paul Manafort moved to that city’s jail to prepare for his upcoming trial on bank and tax fraud charges. But Manafort is fighting the move, saying he wants to stay at a jail 100 miles away in Virginia’s Northern Neck.
Manafort, who served as President Donald Trump’s campaign chairman for several months, last week asked for his July 25 trial in Alexandria federal court to be delayed until this fall, saying his incarceration at Northern Neck Regional Jail has made it too difficult to prepare. He also wanted the trial moved to Roanoke.
Now the defense says moving Manafort to Alexandria would be more challenging then leaving him where he is.
“In light of Mr. Manafort’s continuing detention and after further reflection, issues of distance and inconvenience must yield to concerns about his safety and, more importantly, the challenges he will face in adjusting to a new place of confinement and the changing circumstances of detention two weeks before trial,” his defense attorneys wrote. “With these considerations in mind, Mr. Manafort respectfully asks the Court to permit him to remain in his current place of detention.”
Judge T.S. Ellis issued the order Tuesday, while saying he would give the special counsel prosecuting Manafort until Friday to weigh in on whether the trial would be moved or delayed. Manafort’s lawyers wrote in a filing last week that the two-hour trip to the Northern Neck and restrictions on electronic or telephone communications there “has made meetings . . . to prepare his defense far more infrequent and enormously time-consuming.”
The government has given them about 2 million pages of documents to review, they said.
Defense attorneys said the distance and limitations have made it impossible to adequately prepare for trial and asked the case be pushed back to this fall, after Manafort faces related charges in the District of Columbia federal court. The judge in that case, Amy Berman Jackson, ordered Manafort to be jailed last month after he was accused of attempting to persuade potential witnesses to lie. Manafort has also asked for the Virginia trial to be moved to Roanoke, saying northern Virginians were too overwhelmed with news stories about the case and too hostile toward the Trump administration to give him a fair trial.