ALEXANDRIA, Va. — President Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort on Tuesday was found guilty of eight of the 18 charges brought against him by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Manafort was found guilty of all five tax fraud charges, each carrying a maximum of three years in prison each. The jury found he filed false income tax returns in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014.
Manafort, 69, was also found guilty of one count of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts in 2012, which carries a maximum of five years in prison.
The two counts of bank fraud that he was found guilty of each carry a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. The two bank fraud charges were related to a $3.4 million loan from Citizens Bank and a $1 million loan from Banc of California that Manafort sought and obtained.
Judge T.S. Ellis III of the Eastern District of Virginia declared a mistrial on 10 other charges he faced — three counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts for 2011, 2013 and 2014, five counts of bank fraud conspiracy, and two counts of bank fraud.
[Also read: Trump's 'bad week': Manafort found guilty, Cohen enters plea deal]
Each of the 12 jurors told Ellis individually they did not believe it possible to reach a consensus on those 10 counts.
Federal prosecutors have until Aug. 29 to decide how to proceed on the 10 charges where the jury deadlocked.
Kevin Downing, one of Manafort's lawyers, told reporters outside the courthouse that Manafort is “disappointed of not getting acquittals all the way through, or a complete hung jury on all counts."
“He is evaluating all of his options at this point,” he added.
The jury of six men and six women delivered their verdict after four days of deliberations.
The trial was the first big test for Mueller, who took over the Russia investigation in May 2017. However, the trial dealt primarily with Manafort's activities before he joined the Trump campaign in March 2016.
President Trump told reporters after the jury delivered its verdict that Manafort is a "good man" and said he feels "very badly for him."
"It's a very sad thing that happened," the president said. "This has nothing to do with Russian collusion."
Manafort faced the possibility of life in prison if he were found guilty on all 18 counts. Ellis said a sentencing date would be forthcoming.
Dressed in a black suit, Manafort turned to face the jury when the verdict was delivered, though he remained stone-faced as the guilty verdicts were read aloud.
His wife, Kathleen Manafort, sat in the front row behind her husband, exhibiting no emotion.
Manafort winked and nodded at his wife as he was led from the courtroom at the conclusion of the trial.
Manafort is being held behind bars in the Alexandria Detention Center, which is a few blocks from the federal courthouse where he was found guilty.
He was ordered to jail by a federal judge in Washington, where he faces charges related to those he faced in Virginia. That trial is slated to begin Sept. 17.
Manafort was out on bond until the judge revoked it in June following accusations of witness tampering. Manafort's lawyers disputed the allegations and appealed the jailing, but lost that effort.
The trial in Alexandria began July 31 and over a span of three weeks, the 12-member jury heard testimony from 27 witnesses, including his former protege Rick Gates, and viewed more than 350 exhibits from the government.
Manafort’s defense attorneys chose not to call any witnesses to the stand, and Manafort himself also declined to testify.
[Also read: The rise and fall of Paul Manafort]
Using emails, photographs, bank records, invoices and other documents, the government sought to detail to the jury how Manafort devised a scheme to hide millions of dollars he earned for political consulting work in Ukraine from the Internal Revenue Service and used that money to fund an extravagant lifestyle replete with high-end clothing, properties up and down the East Coast, and luxury cars.
Manafort, they explained to the jury, controlled 31 bank accounts in Cyprus, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and the United Kingdom, and failed to disclose them to the IRS on his tax returns.
In all, Manafort did not pay taxes on more than $15 million from 2010 to 2014, prosecutor Greg Andres told the jury during closing arguments.
Witnesses from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Manafort’s bookkeeper detailed to the jury how Manafort was flush with cash as his consulting firm, Davis Manafort Partners International, raked in millions while working for Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions.
But income to Manafort’s firm began to crater in 2015, which prosecutors attribute to Yanukovych’s ousting from power in 2014.
It was then that Manafort resorted to defrauding banks to continue funding his life of luxury, prosecutors said, including Citizens Bank and the Banc of California.
With testimony from bank representatives and Gates, as well as emails and loan applications, the jury heard how Manafort submitted doctored financial statements for his consulting firm that inflated the income for Davis Manafort Partners International.
Witnesses said Manafort failed to disclose outstanding debts on two properties he owned, and misrepresented one of those properties, a condominium on Howard Street, as a second residence when it was being used as a rental.
Additionally, prosecutors argued Manafort classified income as a loan to lessen his tax bill, then asserted the pseudo-loan was “forgiven” as he sought to secure money from banks.
Gates, who is cooperating with Mueller as part of a plea deal, was a key witness for the prosecution, as he detailed Manafort’s scheme to conceal income and secure millions of dollars in bank loans.
Manafort’s lawyers sought to discredit Gates, revealing he embezzled what they said was millions of dollars from Manafort by falsifying expense reports and had an extramarital affair.
Andres, though, acknowledged to the jury that Gates was an imperfect witness, but challenged them to test his testimony against that of Manafort’s bookkeeper and tax preparer, and pair it with documents for verification.
“The star witness in this case is the documents,” he said.
During the course of the trial, Ellis frequently sparred with federal prosecutors, chiding them for focusing too much on Manafort's lifestyle and reminding the government that it is not a crime in the U.S. to be wealthy.
He apologized on one occasion for yelling at prosecutors after they said an expert witness had remained in the courtroom during proceedings.
But Ellis complimented prosecutors and Manafort's team as the trial came to a close for their "very effective and zealous representation."
"That isn't a statement I can make as often as I'd like," he said.
The FBI’s interest in Manafort began in November 2016, when NBC News reported that the FBI was making an inquiry into his foreign business connections.
Then in October 2017, Manafort surrendered to the FBI after a federal grand jury indicted him and Gates in Washington on fraud and money laundering charges.
The charges against the two, like in Virginia, centered around their work in Ukraine and were not related to Trump or his campaign.
Manafort pleaded not guilty, and that trial is set to begin in September.
Manafort and Gates were first indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia in February, and a day later, Gates took a plea deal. Less than a week later, Manafort pleaded not guilty.
Ahead of the trial, Manafort’s lawyers went through great lengths to get certain evidence tossed and appeared to have almost convinced Ellis the case was outside the scope of the special counsel’s investigation.
“You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud. You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump or lead to his prosecution or impeachment or whatever,” Ellis told prosecutors in a preliminary hearing in May.
But Ellis issued a June opinion that said “upon further review” it was clear that Mueller had “followed the money paid by pro-Russian officials” to Manafort, something that fell within his authority.
Before closing arguments began, Manafort’s defense again attempted to have Manafort acquitted on all charges.
Ellis threw out that motion last week.
“The defense makes a significant argument about materiality but [...] I think materiality is an issue for the jury,” Ellis said. “That is true for all of the other counts. Those are all jury issues.”