Justice Department wants Manafort to pay $3M over failure to report foreign income

WASHINGTON — A prosecutor has asked a South Florida federal judge to order Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign manager in 2016, to pay nearly $3 million in fees to the U.S. government over his failure to disclose foreign income hidden in over two dozen shell corporations and foreign accounts in 2013 and 2014, according to a federal lawsuit.

In court papers filed Thursday, Deputy Assistant Attorney General David Hubbert said that Manafort had to pay $2,976,350.15 due to his “willful failure to timely report his financial interest in foreign bank accounts.”

“Interest and statutory additions continue to accrue,” Hubbert wrote to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in West Palm Beach.

The government’s civil suit alleges that Manafort earned and used money from Ukrainian clients in 2013 and 2014 that he deposited into accounts he set up in

Cyprus, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the United Kingdom, but did not disclose to U.S. tax authorities.

He also had access to or controlled accounts that were nominally set up by two of his consulting firm’s employees, Richard W. Gates III and Konstantin Kilimnik.

On July 23, 2020, U.S. authorities sent Manafort a demand for payment. Despite the notice, Manafort “failed to pay the penalties assessed against him,” the court filing reads.

Manafort could not immediately be reached for comment.

Manafort faced federal criminal charges in two separate cases in 2018 over tax fraud. One case, in Virginia, resulted in a mistrial, while the other in the District of Columbia ended in a guilty verdict.

Trump pardoned Manafort on both cases in 2020 in the final days of his presidency.

Last month, Manafort was pulled off a plane at Miami International Airport heading to Dubai because he was carrying a revoked passport, the Associated Press reported.