Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates will remain under house arrest for at least a few more days while their attorneys work out an agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team on a bond package that would permit their release.
The negotiations over the conditions of pretrial release for Manafort and Gates has dragged into a second week. At a hearing Monday, the federal judge presiding over the case signaled that she was ready to impose a curfew, GPS monitoring and travel restrictions if the government and the defense attorneys couldn’t come to a deal.
Mueller’s team has indicated in court documents filed over the weekend that it would be open to let Manafort to travel to Florida, New York and Virginia if Manafort put up a financially appropriate bond package.
The current hangup is over the worth of the real estate properties Manafort is proposing to include the bond package, as well as the details of the other financial assets Manafort is offering.
Manafort’s attorneys estimated in filings Saturday that the three properties in New York and Florida were worth around $8 million, while the government argued in Sunday court documents that it hadn’t been able to confirm those estimates and had reason to doubt them.
“It didn’t come with the necessary information,” U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said to Manafort attorney Kevin Downing about the bail package he proposed Saturday.
Greg Andres, the attorney representing Mueller’s team in the hearing, indicated that they were working on a similar bond package with Gates’ lawyer but they were “further behind” in determining Gates’ financial assets.
He estimated that it would take at least two more days to obtain the financial information needed to put forward an agreement on a bond package.
Manafort and Gates are facing allegations of tax evasion, money laundering and failing to disclose lobbying for foreign agents, charges that Mueller brought as part of his Russia investigation. They turned themselves a week ago to the FBI and have pleaded not guilty.
The parties at Monday’s hearing also agreed to put off scheduling a trial date for a few more weeks as they work through discovery. They agreed to update the judge on a potential trial date at a status hearing scheduled for Dec. 11.
