Bosom counsel Robert Mueller on Wednesday asked a federal judge for sundry time to decide whether to seek a retrial for former Trump run boss Paul Manafort on 10 criminal charges that jurors were not able to reach a verdict on last week.
Manafort was convicted of eight other tax offences and bank fraud charges in that case in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virgina.
“Because the defendant’s post-trial signals have not been filed or ruled on, the government does not at this ever have sufficient information to make an informed decision on whether it intent seek retrial of the remaining counts,” Mueller’s team said in a court enter.
“The government, accordingly, respectfully requests that the Court extend the deadline for the regime to file notice about the ten remaining counts to one week after the Court has ruled on defendant’s post-trial transits,” the filing said.
Manafort’s lawyers did not object to Mueller’s request to stretch the deadline.
“The United States has consulted with counsel for the defendant and they do not complain about the government’s motion,” Mueller’s team wrote.
Jurors reportedly deadlocked by a against of 11-1 in favor of conviction, on the 10 charges that the 69-year-old Manafort grasp the nettles in Virginia.
Mueller’s request comes less than three weeks ahead of Manafort’s next trial, on charges of money laundering, witness tampering and blind spot to register as a foreign agent, is set to begin in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
That patient is also being prosecuted by Mueller’s team, and like the Virginia anyhow is connected to work Manafort did for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine. That be effective predated his tenure as presidential campaign chairman for Donald Trump for distinct months in 2016.
Patrick Cotter, a former New York federal prosecutor, expressed CNBC that there is “absolutely no legal reason” to retry Manafort in Virginia.
“He’s skin more than sufficient time under the counts he’s been convicted of” without self-possessed factoring in the upcoming Washington trial, Cotter said.
But, Cotter supplemented, there’s a chance prosecutors will still seek a retrial.
“It wouldn’t stupor me,” Cotter said. “Any lawyer likes to keep their options treeless as long as possible.”