Real estate takes center stage in Manafort trial

Laporta, who testified after she was granted immunity, said “I very much regret” the decision to go along with a plan that she estimated saved Manafort at least $400,000 in taxes.

Someone who didn’t testify this week: Rick Gates, Manafort’s former business partner.

Trump has proven he’s willing to pardon people he feels have been loyal to him and use his pardon powers to make political points – and he’s also railed against special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russian Federation investigation, which led to the charges against Manafort.

Prosecutors also showed the jury March 2016 emails between Laporta and Gates about fabricating a forgiveness letter on another, $1.5 million loan that Citizen’s Bank needed.

The vendors largely say they do not recognize the company names Manafort used, yet they knew the payments came from him because their amounts matched the bills they sent him. He wanted to send it to Federal Savings Bank, LaPorta said.

She clearly explained, for instance, why Gates asked – and she agreed – that she characterize $900,000 that had been previously reported as income as a loan to DMP International, which Manafort and his wife owned.

But Washkuhn said that while Gates dealt with some business matters for Manafort’s consulting firm, “mainly Mr. Manafort was the approval source”. “I could have refused to file the tax return”, which would have led to a lawsuit, she said. “Language has a dynamic aspect; it changes, and I don’t control those changes”, said Ellis.

The bookkeeper said Paul Manafort submitted fake financial documents.

But Ellis reminded prosecutors, “The government has to prove that [Manafort] knew what the requirement was and that he deliberately violated it”. And then there’s the mysterious Chicago banker whose loan officers considered Manafort’s finances too dodgy to justify a loan – who then lent Manafort a sum equal to 22 percent of his bank’s equity and was rewarded with a role as an economic adviser to the Trump campaign. Mr. Gates responded by sending a forged forgiveness letter, Ms. Laporta testified.

The letter was back-dated almost eight months earlier and included no signatures.

Several points of her testimony stuck out.

When asked if she believed the loan had been forgiven, Ms. Laporta hesitated before saying, “no”. If she challenged him, she said, it was also possible her company could be sued. The testimony suggested that Gates wanted a document he could alter.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Uzo Asonye walked Laporta through e-mails and balance sheets from ledgers and tax filings, showing how Manafort, allegedly with the help of his deputy Rick Gates, tried to inflate and deflate income by declaring, then writing off, loans made to his consulting business from foreign entities, many based in Cyprus.

In one instance, Ayliff testified that Manafort pressed him to tell bankers considering a loan application that one of Manafort’s NY properties was being used as a personal residence when in fact he was using it to rent out.

Paul Manafort, shown in June, is on trial in federal court on 18 counts of tax and bank fraud.

Testimony also revealed more on Manafort’s lavish spending habits, including spending $425,000 on landscaping in addition to his expensive wardrobe. Gates is expected to face bruising cross-examination, and his credibility is likely to be an important test of the prosecution’s case.

Later, the bank said there was an issue with Manafort’s finances. But attempts to verify the loan’s terms were futile.

One of Manafort’s accountants, Philip Ayliff testified Wednesday at the Alexandria Federal Courthouse in Virginia that Manafort told banks his Trump Tower condominium was his primary residence when it was in fact a rental property from which he was drawing income.

“Money’s coming in fast”, Manafort’s lawyer, Thomas Zehnle, told jurors at the trial’s beginning.

“We thought it was an independent third party”, he said.