(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort faced a new legal headache on Wednesday after a Cyprus-based company tied to a Russian oligarch sued him and his business partner Richard Gates over allegations they committed financial fraud by misappropriating millions of dollars.
Surf Horizon Limited, a company linked in corporate filings to ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin named Oleg Deripaska, accused Manafort and Gates of misappropriating more than $18.9 million that the company had invested in Ukrainian telecom companies known collectively as the “Black Sea Cable.”
Manafort and Gates are already under criminal indictment by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who has accused them of failing to register as foreign agents, conspiring to commit money launder and conspiring to defraud the United States.
Wednesday’s lawsuit, brought against the pair in a New York state trial-level court, marks the second time now that the Deripaska-linked company has sued them along with Pericles Emerging Market Partners, an investment management firm controlled by Manafort and Gates.
In August 2015, the company also filed a parallel case in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, seeking documents and depositions in connection with the alleged missing money.
Lawyers for Manafort and Gates could not immediately be reached for comment.
According to the lawsuit, Manafort and Gates had testified under oath in 2015 that they did not know whether Surf Horizon still owned any stock in the Black Sea Cable, even though Surf claims had paid one of their affiliated companies $7.35 million in management fees.
The lawsuit says Manafort and Gates said in sworn testimony they did not know what happened to more than $26 million had gone missing from the investment.
In May 2017, however, one of Surf’s affiliates, known as Adoptol Limited, brought legal proceedings in Cyprus and unearthed documents which show that Manafort and Gates had “siphoned off for themselves millions of dollars” from Surf’s investment, the lawsuit said.
Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; additional reporting by John Walcott and Warren Strobel; Editing by Marguerita Choy
The judge overseeing Paul Manafort‘s criminal prosecution today dismissed the notion that house arrest is detrimental to the defendant’s health–and then suggested that he get some exercise.
After rejecting a motion by special counsel Robert Mueller to begin Manafort’s trial in May, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson heard and referenced motions, arguments and documents entered by the defense.
One such document was a doctor’s note written on behalf of Manafort by his personal physician.
Jackson apparently referenced the document dismissively, telling Manafort’s attorney Kevin Downing that a doctor’s note wasn’t going to cut it and that a formal motion had to be submitted if Manafort wanted to change the the terms of his house arrest.
The doctor’s note has not been released publicly and its contents were not shared with court reporters.
BuzzFeed News‘ Zoe Tillman, noted, “Judge was also critical of Manafort, while on house arrest, seeking to modify conditions based on a doctor’s note. We didn’t learn what it said, but judge hinted it had to do with exercise – she said Manafort wasn’t confined to his couch and had ways of exercising.”
According to Josh Gerstein‘s write-up of the incident in Politico, Jackson ridiculed the allegation that house arrest was in someway endangering Manafort’s health. Jackson said:
While he’s subject to home confinement, he’s not confined to his couch, and I believe he has plenty of opportunity to exercise.
Paul Manafort was indicted alongside political consultant Rick Gates in late October over various charges of conspiracy, conspiracy to commit money laundering and other federal crimes.
Follow Colin Kalmbacher on Twitter: @colinkalmbacher
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