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Manafort reaches $12 million bail agreement with special counsel that could allow him to travel

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Paul Manafort, former campaign manager for Donald Trump, arrives to the U.S. Courthouse for a bond hearing in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Nov. 6, 2017.

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images


Paul Manafort, former campaign manager for Donald Trump, arrives to the U.S. Courthouse for a bond hearing in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Nov. 6, 2017.



Attorneys for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort have reached a deal with the special counsel's office to spring Manafort from house arrest and allow him to travel between New York, Virginia and Florida ahead of his anticipated May trial.





The filing, dated Tuesday, was submitted to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. It is subject to approval from U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson.



According to the filing, Manafort has agreed to forfeit assets he says are worth about $11.65 million, including four homes, if he violates the conditions of his bail.




Manafort's wife, Kathleen Manafort, agreed to guarantee the entire amount of the bond, according to the filing. His daughter Andrea agreed to serve as surety with respect to the $3.70 million New York property that she partly owns.



Manafort is under house arrest in Virginia and remains subject to GPS monitoring following an indictment issued last month by special counsel Robert Mueller. Manafort and his longtime business partner Rick Gates were charged with 12 counts related to money laundering and undisclosed foreign lobbying.



The government has repeatedly contended that Manafort is a flight risk.



The properties included in the agreement are the Alexandria, Virginia, residence where he lives now, a home in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and two residences in New York. Manafort has also agreed not to travel internationally and to forfeit his three passports to the special counsel's office.



Notably absent from the list of properties included in the new filing is Manafort's condominium in Trump Tower.



Prosecutors had earlier raised doubts about whether Manafort's Fifth Avenue property was worth as much as he said it was.



Manafort's attorneys had claimed the condominium was worth $3 million, given a fair market price of $6 million and a $3 million mortgage. The $6 million valuation came from an "open source estimate" of a different unit in the building.



That condo was worth $4.5 million, according to the estimate. Manafort's attorneys argued their client's condo, which is on a higher floor, was more valuable.



In response, the government said it couldn't be sure the property had any equity at all. Prosecutors argued in a filing that two estimates of Manafort's property valued the Fifth Avenue residence between $2.5 million and $2.7 million.



The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that the value of condos in Trump Tower were lagging other midtown New York properties, and had fallen sharply since Trump initiated his successful bid for the presidency.



Attorneys for Manafort did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the special counsel's office declined to comment "beyond the court filings."





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