According to The Wall Street Journal, Paul Manafort tried to work out a plea deal with Special Counsel Robert Mueller on his second upcoming trial in Washington, DC at the same time a jury was deciding his fate in Alexandria.
The plea discussions occurred as a Virginia jury was spending four days deliberating tax and bank fraud charges against Mr. Manafort, the people said. That jury convicted him on eight counts and deadlocked on 10 others. Prosecutors accused Mr. Manafort of avoiding taxes on more than $16 million he earned in the early 2010s through political consulting work in Ukraine.
The plea talks on the second set of charges stalled over issues raised by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, one of the people said. It isn’t clear what those issues were, and the proposed terms of the plea deal couldn’t immediately be determined.
(...)
The talks were aimed at forestalling a second, related trial for Mr. Manafort, which is scheduled to begin on Sept. 17 in Washington.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers have been arguing over how to describe that case to the jury and what evidence can be presented at trial. They are scheduled to discuss those issues at a hearing Tuesday morning before U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson.
Manafort is the only charged Trump associate who has refused to cut a deal and cooperate with the special counsel so news a negotiation had been underway marks a significant change in his defense.
Prosecutors have until Wednesday to report whether they plan to retry Mr. Manafort on the deadlocked counts in his Virginia trial. For now, both sides appear to be preparing for the Washington trial.
In that case, prosecutors accuse Mr. Manafort of not registering in the U.S. for his lobbying work for the Ukrainian government between 2008 and 2014, and of conspiring to launder millions of dollars in income from that work to hide it from U.S. authorities.
In June, prosecutors added charges accusing Mr. Manafort of trying to influence the testimony of potential witnesses. That prompted Judge Jackson to send Mr. Manafort to jail as he awaited trial.
In a filing late Friday, prosecutors said they expected to take 10 to 12 days to present their case. Last week they turned over to Mr. Manafort’s team more than 1,500 exhibits they plan to present.
Mr. Manafort’s attorneys said they weren’t sure if they would present a defense, but if they did, it could take three or four days. They said they were in the process of identifying expert witnesses who could testify on money-laundering and foreign-lobbying registration rules.
Manafort Sought Deal in Next Trial, but Talks Broke Down (WSJ) *Note: All WSJ articles appear behind a paywall