News Item
"Law & Crime" featured Law Professor Mimi Rocah in "Legal Experts Say Manafort Could Be Cutting Plea Deal as Judge Suddenly Delays Proceedings"
The judge overseeing Paul Manafort‘s federal court case on charges of tax evasion and bank fraud in Virginia delayed proceedings in a surprise move on Monday afternoon. According to legal experts familiar with the federal court system, this could be an indication that Manafort is about to cut a plea deal.
Per Politico’s Josh Gerstein, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III postponed a hearing set for tomorrow on issues regarding change of venue requests and trial delays. Gerstein noted, “Jurors were to be summoned on the day following the rescheduled hearing. Jury selection set to open the next day.”
The delay may or may not have caught the prosecution and defense off guard–but was certainly a shock to those watching the events unfold from a distance. According to the publicly-accessible court docket, no party had submitted a request for such a delay and there was also no indication of an official court notice being filed as of late Monday afternoon.
Many legal observers noted that this was a strange turn of events with the trial fast approaching; several even indicated that this last-minute interruption could signal Manafort’s last-minute willingness to flip.
In his initial tweet, Gerstein added, “Lot of tea leaves to read.” Indeed there are. But instead of speculating over our own collective cup of Earl Grey here at Law&Crime, we asked several legal experts with experience in the federal court system to do the heavy-lifting for us. Here’s what they had to say.
Mimi Rocah is a former AUSA with the Southern District of New York (SDNY); she’s currently a distinguished fellow in criminal justice at Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law. Rocah wasn’t quite convinced there was too much importance in Monday’s delay–at least not for now. In an emailed response, she said, “Not par for course but without trial date moving too I wouldn’t read too much into it yet.”
Read the full article.
