Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, has been released from a federal prison to serve the remainder of his term in home confinement, after his attorneys appealed for the move because of concerns over coronavirus.
Manafort’s attorney, Todd Blanche, confirmed his release to home confinement, but declined further comment. ABC News first reported on Manafort’s move.
Manafort, 71, had been at the low security FCI Loretto in Pennsylvania. He was scheduled to be released on Nov. 3, 2024. His lawyers had argued that he was a high risk if he contracted the coronavirus because of his age and preexisting medical conditions.
Manafort was sentenced in March, 2019, to more than seven years in prison after he was convicted in cases brought against him by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.
He was convicted in August, 2018, by a jury in Virginia federal court of eight of 18 bank and tax fraud charges, related to work he did before the 2016 presidential campaign. He later reached a plea agreement with Mueller’s team over another set of charges he faced in D.C. federal court, having to do with his political consulting business and work he did on behalf of Viktor Yanukovych’s pro-Russian Ukrainian government. But the prosecutors said that he breached that plea agreement because he then lied about the nature of his contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik, a business associate suspected of having ties to Russian intelligence.
Manafort worked on the Trump campaign from April to August, 2016, and departed as reports surfaced on his prior work on behalf of Yanukovych.
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