Robert Mueller brings new charges against ex-Trump associates Paul Manafort and Rick Gates
Thursday’s filing adds allegations of tax evasion and increases the amount of money Manafort is accused of laundering through offshore accounts to US$30 million
US President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and a business associate, Rick Gates, face new charges in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.
“Manafort and Gates generated tens of millions of dollars in income as a result of their Ukraine work,” the new indictment said.
“From approximately 2006 through the present, Manafort and Gates engaged in a scheme to hide income from United States authorities, while enjoying the use of the money.”
Manafort and Gates, his former deputy, were accused in an October indictment of laundering millions of dollars earned while acting as unregistered agents of the Ukrainian government.
Thursday’s filing adds allegations of tax evasion and increases the amount of money Manafort is accused of laundering through offshore accounts to US$30 million.
It claims the men doctored documents to inflate the income of their businesses and then used those fraudulent documents to obtain loans.
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It also accuses Manafort of evading taxes from 2010 through 2014, and in some of the years concealing his foreign bank accounts.
The filing potentially increases the amount of prison time the pair could face if convicted at trial.
The new indictment comes a week after Mueller filed charges against 13 Russians, accusing them of a vast conspiracy to undermine the US presidential election, and after charging lawyer Alex Van Der Zwaan with lying to investigators about his communications with Gates.
In a document that accompanied the new indictment, prosecutors said they had filed the charges in Virginia, rather than Washington where the other case is pending, because the alleged conduct occurred there and one of the defendants objected to them being brought in Washington.
The charges against Manafort and Gates don’t relate to any allegations of misconduct related to Trump’s campaign.
