WASHINGTON _ Two companies controlled by Paul Manafort's former right-hand-man, Rick Gates, received more than $200,000 in 2015 from accounts linked to a multimillion-dollar fraud scam, according to filings in a federal lawsuit.
The money was connected to an alleged scheme perpetrated by two movie producers, a Hollywood agent and a Republican fundraiser charged by federal prosecutors with swindling as many as nine investors out of millions of dollars. But the money didn't go to movies, instead it went to personal expenses, including homes, yacht payments and a Jaguar.
The money flowed in to Gates' companies during a period when Gates' and Manafort's lucrative foreign political work was starting to dry up, according to Gates testimony Tuesday in Manafort's federal trial on multiple tax and bank fraud charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. Manafort was President Donald Trump's campaign chairman.
