After serving almost two years, Paul Manafort moved from prison to home confinement to serve remained for his 7.5 year federal sentence due to COVID concerns

May 13, 2020

As reported in this new ABC News piece, headlined “Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort released to home confinement amid coronavirus concerns,” a high-profile, white-collar offender is getting moved from federal prison to home confinement due to coronoavirus concerns. Here are the essentials (with a few details highlighted):

President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been released from prison to serve the remainder of his sentence in home confinement because of concerns over the novel coronavirus, two sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

Manafort was released from FCI Loretto in central Pennsylvania early Wednesday morning, the two sources said. An attorney for Manafort confirmed he had been released to home confinement but declined to comment further. The Bureau of Prisons also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Manafort, 71, has been serving out his more than seven-year sentence for charges related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation in a federal correctional institution in central Pennsylvania. He was found guilty of tax fraud and conspiracy and was sentenced by a federal judge in March 2019. He was slated to be released from prison November 4, 2024. The charges stemmed from his work related to Ukraine between 2006 and 2015….

The decision to move Manafort to home confinement comes after his attorneys wrote a letter to the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) last month requesting that he be immediately transferred to home confinement because he is at high risk of contracting COVID-19 because of his age and pre-existing conditions.

While there are no known cases of coronavirus at FCI Loretto, sources have told ABC News that the prison was an old monastery, and due to the open configuration of the prison, would be devastated by the virus.

In December, Manafort was hospitalized for several days due to what sources described as a “cardiac event.” He recovered at a local Pennsylvania hospital under the supervision of correctional officers. His lawyers say his pre-existing conditions include high blood pressure, liver disease, and respiratory ailments and add that Manafort contracted influenza and bronchitis in February 2020. Manafrot takes 11 medications daily, according to his attorneys.

“We write on behalf of our client to request that the Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) immediately transfer Mr. Manafort to home confinement to serve the remainder of his sentence or, alternatively, for the duration of the on-going COVID-19 pandemic in accordance with Attorney General William Barr’s directives to the BOP on March 26 and April 3, 2020, and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (“CARES Act”), enacted on March 27, 2020,” attorneys Kevin Downing and Todd Blanche wrote in an April 13 letter obtained by ABC News….

Last month the Justice Department issued a clarification regarding its policy on releasing certain inmates into home confinement, after a series of conflicting messages sparked confusion and uncertainty among prisoners, attorneys and federal courts. “[Bureau of Prisons] is at this time prioritizing for consideration those inmates who either (1) have served 50% or more of their sentences, or (2) have 18 months or less remaining in their sentences and have served 25% or more of their sentences,” federal prosecutors wrote in a court filing in the Southern District of New York last month. “As BOP processes the inmates eligible for home confinement under these criteria and learns more about the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on BOP facilities, it is assessing whether and how to otherwise priority consideration.”

Manafort has served just under 30% of his prison sentence, however prison officials have wide latitude when considering these releases on a case-by-case basis.

I am quite pleased to see that the federal Bureau of Prisons has had the good sense to place this elderly, ill, nonviolent offender into home confinement; Manafort is exactly the type of person in federal prison who is a high-health risk due to the coronavirus while being a low-public-safety risk when serving his sentence at home. But I have highlighted some notable feature of this case in the hope that BOP will take the same approach to the many thousands of other elderly and ill nonviolent persons in federal prison, even when a particular prison facility currently has no confirmed COVID cases and even when an individual has served considerably less than 50% of a lengthy prison term.

I know that federal prosecutors have regularly opposed compassionate release motions around the country by making much of the fact that certain prison facilities currently have no confirmed COVID cases and the fact that a particular inmate has not served the majority of an original long sentencing term. But if those factors did not keep the BOP from moving Paul Manafort from federal prison into home confinement, they ought not to keep federal judges from granting needed sentence reductions to enhance public health and community safety for less prominent persons at real risk of having a federal prison sentence become a death sentence.

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