Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort sentenced to 47 months in prison
President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been sentenced to 47 months in prison for tax and bank fraud crimes.
Manafort was the first to be charged as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election.
The sentence of nearly four years in prison, handed down on Thursday, is far more lenient than the 69 year old was expected to receive; prosecutors had cited federal sentencing guidelines that called for 19 to 24 years in prison.
But District Judge TS Ellis said the sentencing guidelines were excessive and would create "an unwarranted disparity" with other cases. "Clearly the guidelines were way out of whack on this," he added.
He sentenced Manafort to less than four years in prison and also ordered him to pay a fine of $50,000 and restitution of just over $24 million.
Some legal experts expressed surprise over the leniency of the sentence. "This is a tremendous defeat for the special counsel's office," said former federal prosecutor David Weinstein.
The veteran Republican political consultant was found guilty last August by a jury of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failing to disclose foreign bank accounts.
During a lengthy sentencing hearing on Thursday night Manafort addressed the court for the first time to ask the judge for mercy.
He did not express remorse for his actions but talked about how the case had been difficult for him and his family.
Manafort, who opted not to testify during his trial, told the court that “to say I have been humiliated and ashamed would be a gross understatement". He described his life as "professionally and financially in shambles".
Manafort, with noticeably greyer hair than just months ago, was brought into the courtroom in a wheelchair holding a cane as he deals with complications from gout. He wore a green prison jumpsuit emblazoned with the words “Alexandria inmate” on the back. It was a far cry from Manafort’s usual dapper appearance. He has been in jail since last summer awaiting his sentencing.
Sentencing him, Judge Ellis told Manafort: "I was surprised I did not hear you express regret for engaging in wrongful conduct."
Manafort was convicted after prosecutors accused him of hiding millions of dollars he earned as a consultant for Ukraine’s former pro-Russia government from the taxman. When the funds ran dry, prosecutors said, Manafort lied to banks to secure loans and maintain an opulent lifestyle.
Inside a crowded courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia prosecutors outline Manafort's lavish spending, from luxurious homes to a now infamous $15,000 ostrich-skin jacket.
His defence team argued he should get a lighter sentence because he had agreed to cooperate with the prosecution after he was convicted - though another judge found he breached that deal by repeatedly lying to prosecutors - and because his bid to secure a $5.5 million bank loan on fraudulent premises did not actually succeed. Judge Ellis rejected those efforts.
Manafort faces sentencing in a separate case next Wednesday in Washington on two conspiracy charges to which he pleaded guilty last September.
While he faces a statutory maximum of 10 years in the Washington case, District Judge Amy Berman Jackson could chose for Manafort to serve that jail sentence after the one imposed in the Virginia case, rather than allowing the sentences to run concurrently.
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