Of the half-dozen former associates of Donald Trump who have been prosecuted by Mueller, Manafort most likely faces the harshest punishment. In the case coming to a conclusion on Thursday — the first of two for which Manafort will be sentenced this month — Judge T.S. Ellis III of the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, will decide whether to follow advisory sentencing guidelines that could effectively put Manafort, who turns 70 next month, in prison for the rest of his life.
For nearly two years, prosecutors pursued Manafort on two tracks, charging him with more than two dozen felonies, including obstruction of justice, bank fraud and violations of lobbying laws. But while they won a jury conviction and a guilty plea, Mueller’s prosecutors have yet to provide a full public account of what information they gleaned from Manafort’s case regarding Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and the degree of involvement by Trump associates.
The evidence in the case tried last summer before Ellis showed that Manafort hid millions of dollars of income in overseas accounts and lied to banks to obtain millions more in loans — a financial scheme that prosecutors said was rooted in greed and in Manafort’s sense that he was above the law.
They described him as a hardened, remorseless criminal who never fully accepted responsibility for his offenses and who continued to lie to federal prosecutors even after he pleaded guilty to two conspiracy counts in a related case in Washington and agreed to cooperate with the special counsel’s office last fall.
While they asked for no specific punishment, the prosecutors cited sentencing guidelines that recommended a prison term of 19 to 24 years. Defense lawyers asked for leniency, citing Manafort’s age, health problems and lack of criminal record.
Manafort will be sentenced next week in the Washington case.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.