Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman will face justice on Monday over a slate of tax and bank fraud charges.
Paul Manafort could very well spend the rest of his life in prison after US District Judge TS Ellis III delivers his sentencing at 3.30pm EST.
Under federal sentencing guidelines, Manafort could receive a 20-year sentence Thursday, though most observers expect he will receive less than that.
A Virginia jury convicted Manafort on eight felonies related to tax and bank fraud charges for hiding foreign income from his work in Ukraine from the IRS and later inflating his income on bank loan applications.
Prosecutors have said the work in Ukraine was on behalf of politicians who were closely aligned with Russia, though Manafort has insisted his work helped those politicians distance themselves from Russia and align with the West.
After his conviction, Manafort pleaded guilty to separate charges in the District of Columbia related to illegal lobbying.
He faces up to five years in prison on each of two counts to which he pleaded guilty.
In the District case, prosecutors say Manafort has failed to live up to the terms of his plea bargain by providing false information to investigators in interviews.
In the Virginia case, neither prosecutors nor defence attorneys have recommended a specific term to the judge in their sentencing memoranda. Manafort’s lawyers have sought a sentence significantly below the guidelines.
“You write the pages to your own life story,” Judge Ellis routinely tells defendants before pronouncing sentence. He also tells those who appear before him that “life is a series of choices and living with the consequences of those choices.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report
