Judge gives U.S. more time to decide on retrying Manafort on deadlocked charges

[August 31, 2018]    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors have more time to decide whether to retry former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on 10 criminal charges that a jury deadlocked on last week, a judge ordered on Thursday.

Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort arrives for arraignment on a third superseding indictment against him by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on charges of witness tampering, at U.S. District Court in Washington, U.S. June 15, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

U.S. District Judge T. S. Ellis delayed the deadline for Special Counsel Robert Mueller to make the decision until one week after Ellis rules on any post-trial motions that Manafort may submit. The original deadline had been Wednesday, which prosecutors said would be difficult to meet because Manafort's lawyers had requested a 30-day extension to file their post-trial motions.

Manafort was found guilty in an Alexandria, Virginia, federal court on eight counts, including all five charges that he submitted false tax returns. The jury deadlocked on 10 charges because of a holdout juror. The charges largely predated Manafort's tenure on Republican Donald Trump's successful presidential campaign in 2016.

While Mueller decides whether to retry on the deadlocked charges, he also is preparing for a second Manafort trial on seven criminal counts including money laundering and obstruction of justice, set to begin next month. One of the main issues in that case is whether Manafort, a longtime lobbyist and Republican consultant, failed to register as a foreign agent for his work on behalf of pro-Russian politicians from Ukraine.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Bill Trott)

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