Paul Manafort's 2 NYC Apartments Up For Sale Other Properties May Follow

Paul Manafort's 2 NYC Apartments Up For Sale
Paul Manafort (Voice of America [Public domain])

Updated 6/20/19, 9:53 a.m. 

You could own two pieces of property that once belonged to Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort, courtesy of the American government. 

Manafort is currently a serving seven-and-a-half-year federal prison sentence in Pennsylvania following his 2018 conviction on federal bank fraud, tax and conspiracy charges. Now two of his New York City residential properties are for up sale after being seized by the federal government as part of a plea bargain.

One of them is Manafort's condo at Trump Tower, which he purchased with his wife in 2006. Court filings indicate that he made no effort to pay off a $3 million mortgage taken out on the 1,500 square-foot, two-bedroom/two-and-a-half-bathroom unit. It is currently listed for $3.6 million, Curbed reported. 

Earlier this month, the New York Post reported that Manafort's loft at 29 Howard Street in Manhattan’s SoHo went on the market for $3.66 million. According to authorities, he allegedly used money from his lobbying work for Ukraine-based pro-Russian groups to buy the home seven years ago,.

Other government-seized Manafort properties include a 5,574 square-foot, 10-bedroom Hamptons residence -- complete with tennis court and putting green -- that could fetch just shy of $9 million; a brownstone in Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens neighborhood with a $3.7 million price tag; and a nearly $4 million pad on the border of Chinatown and Little Italy.

In its investigation, New York public radio station WNYC reported that some of Manafort’s properties were acquired through a shell company and purchased entirely with cash. Manafort allegedly would transfer the properties to himself, for free, then insure them via substantial mortgages. While not considered money laundering in and of itself, this transactional pattern was enough to “merit scrutiny,” according to current and former law enforcement authorities who talked to WNYC,

Meanwhile, selling a property that is even indirectly linked to President Trump might prove difficult in real estate terms, according to broker Ari Harkov. “I think there are buyers who wouldn’t buy it or would be less interested because of [the connection to the President]” he told the Post.

Mike Odenthal is a staff writer at The Cooperator. 

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