The Tax Times: Manafort Found Guilty On Tax Fraud & Failure to Report Offshore Financial Accounts (FBAR)

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Manafort Found Guilty On Tax Fraud & Failure to Report Offshore Financial Accounts (FBAR)

On March 13, 2018 we posted More Charges Against Ex-Trump Campaign Chair Including Offshore Account Violations! where we discussed that President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and an alleged co-conspirator have been indicted on charges of conspiracy against the United States, money laundering and bank records charges tied to close to a decade of secret lobbying on behalf of Russia-associated Ukrainian officials.

We also discussed that Special Counsel Robert Mueller unsealed a slew of new tax- and bank fraud-related criminal charges on February 22, 2018 against President Donald Trump’s former campaign officials Paul Manafort and Richard Gates, alleging they filed false income tax returns and failed to report foreign bank accounts.

The charges against Manafort and Gates, a business associate, include:

16 counts related to allegedly false income tax returns,
7 counts of failure to report offshore financial accounts,
5 counts of bank fraud conspiracy and
4 counts of bank fraud.

Now according to Law360, a Virginia federal jury on August 21, 2018 convicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on some charges of filing false tax returns and lying to banks in order to secure tens of millions of dollars in loans. Paul Manafort was found guilty on 8 counts of filing false tax returns and lying to banks, while the jury deadlocked on 10 more counts. (AP)

Returning guilty verdicts on 8 counts of bank fraud, subscribing to False Tax Returns, and failure to Disclose Foreign Bank Accounts, jurors largely rejected Manafort’s claim that his protege and onetime co-defendant Rick Gates was responsible for false claims about the longtime GOP operative’s finances and a network of offshore bank accounts that were the source of millions of dollars in payments to U.S. vendors to support Manafort’s luxurious lifestyle. The jurors deadlocked on the other 10 counts.

The government at trial elicited testimony from Manafort’s bookkeeper and tax preparers who said he was deeply involved with matters relating to his personal finances, even though Gates was often their point of contact for day-to-day matters. Gates cut a deal with prosecutors to testify against his former boss and admitted that he embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from Manafort.

Manafort’s attorneys unloaded on Gates at trial, painting the individual described by multiple witnesses as Manafort’s “right-hand man” as a liar and thief who embezzled money to fund a transnational extramarital affair.

But ultimately, the jury either rejected defense’s claims that Gates’ was too untrustworthy to rely on as a witness, or they decided the remaining balance of evidence was sufficient to prove the government’s claims.

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