Former Trump Campaign Chief Paul Manafort Pleads Not Guilty To New York State Criminal Charges

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort pleaded not guilty Thursday afternoon to mortgage fraud and other criminal charges filed by New York state authorities, as his lawyer vowed to challenge the case on grounds of double jeopardy.

Manafort, dressed in a blue jailhouse jumpsuit and a brown belt, was helped to his feet by his lawyers as he was arraigned before a packed courtroom in Manhattan Criminal Court on the charges, which accuse him of fraudulently obtaining millions of dollars worth of residential mortgage loans. Manafort was brought in handcuffs to the Criminal Court building.

Judge Maxwell Wiley ordered him kept in the nearby federal jail in lower Manhattan, where Manafort has been kept last week.

The 70-year-old Manafort already is serving a federal prison sentence of seven-and-a-half years.

The New York state charges were announced minutes after he was sentenced for the second of two federal cases in March.

Manafort is next scheduled to appear in court for the case on October 9.

Manfort was convicted last August at his first trial in federal court in Virginia of eight felony counts, including tax fraud, failure to file a report of foreign bank and financial accounts, and bank fraud. Jurors deadlocked on 10 other counts.

A month later, the longtime Republican operative pleaded two counts of conspiracy on the eve of his second trial, which was due to take place in Washington, D.C., federal court.

Both cases related to income earned from consulting work he performed in Ukraine for a pro-Russia political party before Manafort joined Trump’s campaign.

Manafort had been doing his federal sentence in a prison in Pennsylvania.