Manafort, US government settles civil suit for $3.15 million

WASHINGTON – Paul Manafort, the former chairman of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, has agreed to pay $3.15 million to settle a civil lawsuit filed by the Justice Department over undeclared foreign bank accounts.

When the civil suit was filed in April 2022, prosecutors alleged that Manafort failed to disclose more than 20 offshore bank accounts he opened in the UK, Cyprus, St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The government sought Manafort to pay fines, penalties and interest, alleging that he failed to file federal tax documents detailing the accounts and failed to disclose the money on his income tax returns. The government said false tax returns were filed from 2006 to 2015 and that the Treasury Department notified Manafort of the fines and assessment in July 2020.

The settlement was detailed in court documents filed Feb. 22 in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Manafort has been prosecuted against Trump associates as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. A jury convicted him of eight financial crimes in 2018, including several related to his political consulting work in Ukraine, but the judge hearing the case declared a mistrial on 10 other counts when the jury failed to reach a verdict.

Manafort was sentenced to more than seven years in prison. Trump pardoned his former campaign manager in the final weeks of his presidency.

Manafort’s ties to Ukraine led to his fall from Trump’s campaign in August 2016, less than a month after Trump accepted the Republican nomination.