Paul Manafort Spared Rikers Stay by Justice Department Intervention

Paul Manafort has been spared solitary confinement at the notorious Rikers Island prison in New York following a last-minute letter from the second-highest law enforcement official in the country, The New York Times reports.

Manafort, 69, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, was set to be transferred to Rikers this month to await trial—as is customary for federal inmates facing New York state charges. That is until a letter, sent by Attorney General William Barr’s new top deputy Jeffrey Rosen, arrived.

The letter reportedly indicated that Rosen was monitoring where Manafort would be held. Then, on Monday, federal prison officials reportedly told the Manhattan district attorney’s office that Manafort would no longer await trial at Rikers. Instead, he will reportedly spend the intervening time at a federal lockup in Manhattan or a Pennsylvania federal prison.

Manafort’s Rikers stay was to await trial on 16 state court felonies in New York, including mortgage fraud and falsifying financial records for an alleged “yearlong residential mortgage fraud scheme.”

Manafort was sentenced in March to a total of seven-and-a-half-years in two separate federal cases, one for an illegal foreign lobbying conspiracy, and the other for tax and bank fraud. He is serving that term at the Pennsylvania federal prison.

His arraignment for the New York charges is scheduled for next week at State Supreme Court in Manhattan.