ALEXANDRIA, VA — Rick Gates on Tuesday tried to offer an explanation for some of the fishy invoices that have popped up in the bank and tax fraud trial of Paul Manafort.
Gates said that at one point he and Manafort had to close their accounts in Cyprus and move their offshore money to banks in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, both located in the Caribbean.
These new banks required more paperwork than the Cyprus banks needed to send wire transfers to vendors in the U.S. The banks required a copy of the invoices from vendors in order to approve the transfer.
But Manafort either didn’t have the invoice, or the invoice listed Manafort’s name, and because the money was being sent from a company and not Manafort himself, Gates needed to create or edit invoices that included the name of the company rather than Manafort.
This issue came up with several vendors. One of those vendors was Alan Couture, where Manafort spent more than $900,000 between 2010 and 2014.
An Alan Couture invoice was misspelled, according to Gates, who said he took down the name directly from the information Manafort sent, implying that Manafort misspelled the company’s name in some of his requests.
Regarding the Alan Courture invoice, Gates said “yes, it’s a modified invoice,” but added, “the payment was legitimate.”
Manafort is on trial here facing bank and tax fraud charges. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.
needed to create or edit invoices
Yep, that always ends well…
Here’s hoping that the prosecution has a copy of whatever Manafort sent to Gates (assuming it was in writing).
I’m guessing these Cyprus banks were being run out of the back of a van.
This is pretty funny shit. It’s an old movie, “The Keystone Cops Get Audited.”
I don’t have anywhere near the amounts of money these two appear to have shuffled around in their worldly endeavors, nor any off shore accounts, but come on boys - you can’t use white out on a spreadsheet on the computer screen!
It just doesn’t work.
I think I get the big big picture of this post but on several points this paragraph simply does not track:
"But Manafort either didn’t have the invoice, or the invoice listed Manafort’s name, and because the money was being sent from a company and not Manafort himself, Gates needed to create or edit invoices that included the name of the company rather than Manafort. "
Who’s on first and what inning is it?