Paul Manafort Gets Far Less Than Federal Prosecutors Recommended

ALEXANDRIA, VA — A federal judge in Virginia on Thursday sentenced former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, convicted of a slew of financial crimes last year, to 47 months in prison — far less than the 19 to 24 years prosecutors had recommended. Judge T.S. Ellis said he believed that would be "excessive" and noted that Manafort had "lived an otherwise blameless life."

Manafort, who spoke four about four minutes from a wheelchair, asked Ellis to be "compassionate." He said he felt "humiliated and shamed," but did not specifically express remorse for his crimes.

The hearing at the Alexandria federal courthouse got underway at 3:30 p.m. Manafort will receive a second sentence next week in Washington, D.C., on witness tampering and conspiracy related to his illegal Ukrainin lobbying and money laundering.

Manafort could have faced up to 24 years in prison. Manafort, 69, was convicted by a jury last August of five tax fraud charges, one charge of hiding foreign bank accounts and two bank fraud charges. The charges stemmed from special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, but the case in Virginia wasn't related to Trump's campaign. Instead, it stemmed from Manafort's overseas work advising politicians in Ukraine.

Manafort was brought into the courtroom not in a business suit, as in past appearances, but in wheelchair dressed in a green jail jumpsuit, CNN reported.

Manafort lost a house he owns in Arlington — in addition to two New York City properties and one in the Hamptons — as part of a reported plea deal that includes his cooperation with the investigation of Russian election interference. The federal government will seize Manafort's Carroll Gardens brownstone and SoHo condominium now that he's pleaded guilty to conspiracy and witness-tampering in Washington, D.C. federal court, a court filing indicates.

Prosecutors in 2017 first accused Manafort of using money from secret offshore bank accounts to buy the homes at 377 Union St. in Brooklyn and 29 Howard St. in Manhattan. He also lied to a bank to get a $5 million loan to renovate the Carroll Gardens property, prosecutors have said.

A Virginia jury convicted Manafort of eight tax and bank fraud charges, but couldn't reach a verdict on 10 other counts in the first case brought in Mueller's probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.