Paul Manafort, a chairman of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, agreed to pay $3.15 million to settle a civil case the Justice Department filed last year alleging "willful failure to timely report his financial interest in foreign bank accounts,” according to court documents.
Court documents filed Feb. 22 in U.S. District Court for Southern Florida, where Manafort lives, detail the settlement. The Justice Department’s lawsuit last year, which sought $2.9 million from Manafort at the time, accusing him of failing to report consulting income from Ukrainian sources that was deposited into accounts he is alleged to have directed to be opened in Cyprus, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the United Kingdom.
The civil lawsuit, filed in West Palm Beach, Florida, said Manafort earned income conducting consulting work in Ukraine from 2006 to 2014. It alleges that Manafort failed to report his interest in foreign accounts on his federal income tax returns or through a timely filed Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, known as FBAR, for 2013 and 2014.
Many of the accounts were alleged to have been opened “without the use of Manafort’s name at all,” using nominee shell corporations opened or operated by others on his behalf, the lawsuit claimed.
Jeffrey Neiman, a lawyer for Manafort, said in statement: “Despite having defenses, Mr. Manafort has chosen to put this chapter of his life completely behind him. Paul has moved on."
Manafort managed Trump’s 2016 campaign briefly and came under scrutiny over his political consulting work in Ukraine, which earned him millions of dollars. He resigned months before the November 2016 presidential election.
Manafort was sentenced to 47 months in prison on fraud and tax charges in March 2019. then-President Donald Trump pardoned him in December 2020. The Trump White House alleged “prosecutorial overreach” in the case.
Manafort was convicted of eight felony counts in Virginia in 2018 and entered into a plea agreement in a separate case of 10 charges, including three counts of failing to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts and seven counts of bank fraud and bank fraud conspiracy.
