United States President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort was sentenced to 47 months in prison on Thursday for tax crimes and bank fraud, AFP reported. The crimes were revealed during an investigation into the alleged meddling by Russia in the 2016 presidential election.
The sentence is the longest given to any defendant in Robert Mueller’s investigation into the alleged election meddling, reported CNN. Mueller is the special counsel overseeing the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, and whether Trump campaign figures were complicit.
Manafort was convicted last year for defrauding banks and the government, and failing to pay taxes on millions of dollars in income he earned from Ukrainian political consulting.
Manafort is one of the six top associates of Trump’s 2016 presidential election campaign to be charged in the Mueller investigation. Judge TS Ellis III of the US District Court in Virginia said Manafort’s crimes were “very serious”, but following the guidelines would have resulted in an unduly harsh punishment, The New York Times reported.
The court also ordered to pay a fine of $50,000 (Rs 35.04 lakh) and to serve three years of supervised release. He will also have to pay restitution of at least $24 million (Rs 168.22 crore).
Manafort will be sentenced next week in Washington for two more crimes he pleaded guilty to last year – witness tampering and conspiracy related to his illegal Ukrainian lobbying and money laundering.
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