Manafort Lied About Carroll Gardens Rental For $3.4M Loan: Report

CARROLL GARDENS, BROOKLYN — Paul Manafort lied about the status of his Carroll Gardens and Soho properties to fraudulently earn a $3.4 million loan, according to Thursday testimony at a federal trial diving into bank and tax fraud charges against President Trump's former campaign chairman, the Washington Post reported.

As the Virginia trial entered its eighth day, Melina James, a mortgage assistant at Citizens Bank, told jurors that Manafort falsely claimed his 377 Union Street brownstone in Carroll Gardens belonged to him "free and clear" while a Soho loft he owned at 29 Howard Street was a second residence where his daughter and her husband lived, the Post reported.

In reality, Manafort rented the Howard Street building on Airbnb for more than a year and still had a mortgage on the Union Street property, James told jurors. The newspaper reported that James testified about unraveling Manafort's falsehoods by examining insurance documents for the Carroll Gardens building and making a call to real estate marketplace Street Easy, which confirmed the building was listed for rent.

Prosecutors reportedly showed a 2016 email in which Manafort told his son-in-law, Jeff Yohai, to hide the fact that the Brooklyn brownstone was a rental before an appraiser visited the property.

An employee with Airbnb also testified, saying the Manhattan loft was posted on the website from January 2015 through April 2016. Two guests stayed at the prime Soho location in January 2015 for $1,971 for four nights and five more visitors paid $16,325 for a 21-night stay in June of that year, the Washington Post reported.

Peggy Miceli, the vice president at Citizens Bank, took the stand Thursday and testified that Manafort would have never received the $3.4 million loan in March 2015 if the bank was aware of the rental property, the paper reported.

A Brooklyn brownstone owned by Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort on Union Street in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)