Paul Manafort Used Brooklyn Home To Defraud Banks: Prosecutor

CARROLL GARDENS, NY — Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort lied to banks to get a $5 million loan to fund repairs to his rundown Carroll Gardens brownstone – but never did the work, according to a new indictment unsealed this week.

Special counselor Robert Mueller hit Manafort and his deputy, Richard Gates, with a new set of charges for tax and bank fraud after they obtained more than $20 million in loans which he said was used to pump up their personal incomes, court papers show.

The pair was previously charged in October after the special counsel accused them of laundering millions in unreported income made from lobbying in the Ukraine, including using it to buy pads in Carroll Gardens and SoHo.

The latest indictments were filed by Mueller, who was appointed to investigate potential coordination between Russia and Trump's presidential campaign, on Thursday. The charges do not involve Trump or his campaign.

A spokesman for Manafort told the Washington Post that he was innocent of the new charges.

"The new allegations against Mr. Manafort, once again, have nothing to do with Russia and 2016 election interference/collusion," Jason Maloni told the paper in a statement. "Mr. Manafort is confident that he will be acquitted and violations of his constitutional rights will be remedied."

Manafort used money he made working for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine to buy the Carroll Gardens brownstone at 377 Union St. for $3 million cash through a shell company in 2012, according to the indictment.

From 2015 to 2016, Manafort used the property to obtain a $5 million loan which he promised the bank would be mainly used to turn it from a multi-family home into a single-family one, court papers claim.

Manafort lied to the bank that he did not get more than 50 percent of his income from outside the U.S. and used hundreds of thousands of dollars from the loan for "purposes unrelated to the construction of the property," according to the indictment.

The Union Street brownstone, between Hoyt and Smith streets, was first publicly linked to Manafort last year by local blogger Katia Kelly of Pardon Me for Asking after residents complained about it becoming an eyesore.

After Manafort was hit with his first indictment, the city issued a stop work order on the home in November after his contractor installed a sprinkler system without a permit.

Image: Mark Wilson/Getty Images