Paul Manafort convicted of bank fraud related to NYC condo

After several days of deliberation, jurors in the Paul Manafort trial found President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager guilty on eight counts, including bank fraud related to his New York real estate holdings, and falsifying tax returns. The jury remained deadlocked on 10 additional counts, including other charges of fraud; the judge in the case declared a mistrial for those.

One of the bank fraud convictions stems from a Soho condo that’s owned by Manafort; Vox explains:

To get a $3.4 million loan on a New York City condo he owned, Manafort falsely told Citizens Bank that the property was a second home when it was a rental property, failed to disclose previous mortgage debt, and, after the lender discovered that debt, falsely claimed it was forgiven. He was convicted of one count of bank fraud for this.

Manafort purchased the condo, located at 29 Howard Street, for $2.85 million in 2012 through a shell company by the name of MC Soho Holdings LLC. In 2016, the property was transferred to Manafort and his wife, Kathleen, according to NYC public records.

Manafort claimed that the Howard Street apartment was a secondary residence for his daughter and son-in-law, when in fact, he was renting it out on Airbnb for as much as $699/night, according to Fast Company.

During his trial, an Airbnb employee testified that the property was listed on the site from January 2015 through April 2016. Manafort falsely represented it as a residence to a bank in order to receive a loan of approximately $3.4 million. During the trial, the vice president of Citizens Bank, which issued the loan, testified that Manafort should not have received the loan, and that it “was way over the maximum” for an investment property, according to the Washington Post.

That condo is one of several properties Manafort owns in New York City, including a condo at Trump Tower and a townhouse on Union Street in Carroll Gardens. The Brooklyn home was also named in the initial indictment; Manafort purchased it for approximately $3 million back in 2012, and sought a $5 million construction loan in order to convert the onetime apartment building into a single-family home. However, according to the indictment, he did not use the funds from that loan for repairs to the brownstone; instead, he used them to pay off debts on other properties, a violation of the terms of the loan.

According to Vox, Manafort will face another set of charges—including money laundering and obstruction—in a separate trial in Washington, D.C., which will get underway next month. This trial “will focus more on Manafort’s actual work for Ukraine rather than just his finances,” per Vox.

Both the Howard Street property and the Brooklyn townhouse are named in the indictment for that trial, which contends that they were part of a broader scheme to “defraud, and to obtain money and property by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises from the United States and others.”