Lawyers for Paul Manafort want the state mortgage fraud case against him dismissed, arguing the charges are the same as those he faced in federal court and violate double jeopardy laws.
“The indictment before this court — charges brought by the New York County District Attorney based on alleged conduct identical to that for which Mr. Manafort was previously charged, tried and sentenced — violates this black-letter New York law,” his attorney Todd Blanche wrote in the court papers filed late Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
President Trump’s former campaign manager is serving a 7½-year sentence following his conviction in two federal cases.
He was convicted last year of hiding millions of dollars from the IRS that he had earned as a foreign lobbyist for a pro-Russian politician in Ukraine and for lying on paperwork to obtain millions in mortgage loans.
The charges arose from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Mere minutes after Manafort’s second federal sentencing in March, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. announced the state charges, “delivering a statement that was as much campaign speech as a public announcement,” Blanche argued.
Manafort pleaded not guilty to a 16-count indictment accusing him of lying to obtain millions of dollars in loans for various properties in New York between 2015 and 2017.
He’s charged with residential mortgage fraud, attempted residential mortgage fraud, conspiracy, falsifying business records and scheme to defraud “based on the same alleged acts and transactions underlying the prior federal proceeding,” states the filing, which asks Justice Maxwell Wiley to toss the indictment.
Vance’s office is expected to argue that double jeopardy doesn’t apply because residential mortgage fraud and falsifying business records are state crimes and not federal crimes, with different legal elements.
But Blanche called that position “a fig leaf woefully inadequate to cover the People’s improper attempt at successive prosecutions of Mr. Manafort in violation of New York law.”
His filing includes a graph comparing the charges in the New York indictment side by side with those in the federal proceeding to show how closely the allegations mirror each other.
Manafort’s lawyers also point out that the New York Legislature significantly expanded the double-jeopardy protection that exists in the US Constitution, extending it to most “offenses arising out of a common event.”
Blanche wrote, “Mr. Manafort is entitled to the equal protection of New York’s double jeopardy statute, which permits no exceptions for defendants who have garnered national interest, nor for favored political causes of the elected district attorney.”
Prosecutors are expected to file papers responding to the motion in the coming weeks, and the judge is expected to issue his ruling Oct. 9.