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Judge signals release of ex-Trump chairman Paul Manafort to Florida home under curfew and GPS monitoring

Court accepts plan to end home confinement, but approves $10 million secured bond and new conditions

Paul Manafort leaves Federal District Court in Washington, Monday, Oct. 30, 2017. Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, and Manafort's business associate Rick Gates have pleaded not guilty to felony charges of conspiracy against the United States and other counts. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

A federal judge Friday said a bail package has been put together that would release former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort from home confinement in his condominium in Virginia and allow him to reside at his house in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, but under a nightly curfew and on GPS monitoring.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson approved the release package that severely limits his domestic travel and bans international travel. It also requires Manafort to use four of his properties to secure a $10 million bond he would lose if he fails to return for court appearances — financial arrangements that need to be finalized with the court before he can go to Florida.

The release terms took more than six weeks to negotiate after Manafort pleaded not guilty Oct. 30 in the first charges in the probe by special counsel Robert Mueller of Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election.

Manafort, 68, and his longtime deputy, Rick Gates, 45, have pleaded not guilty to charges of money laundering and fraud in connection with his work advising a Russia-friendly political party in Ukraine

In the wake of Manafort's arrest, his defense team and prosecutors had said they expected to strike a bail deal within 48 hours.

But Jackson earlier ruled that “release on personal recognizance with an unsecured appearance bond will not reasonably assure the appearance of the defendant as required,” given his wealth, international network and travel experience.

That left the parties locked in talks over how much of Manafort's wealth would be enough to deter the risk of flight. The discussions also faced a complicating development in which Jackson warned Manafort not to violate a court gag order in the case through actions like his ghostwriting of a Dec. 7 Ukrainian op-ed article defending work he had done in the country.

As part of his release from house arrest, Manafort pledged assets of more than $10 million including his Florida and Virginia homes, a house in Bridgehampton, New York, that he owns with this wife Kathleen; a condominium in Manhattan's Chinatown district that he co-owns with his wife and their daughter, Andrea Manafort Shand.

Jackson also directed Manafort's wife and daughter to provide financial records verifying the deposit of cash or securities valued at $5 million and $2 million, respectively, to be available to the court as security.

Once the various financial terms are executed, Jackson said, she will issue a separate order to release Manafort to live in Florida but with restrictions to be home nightly from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. and limit routine travel to within Palm Beach and Broward counties in south Florida except for travel with one day's notice to the District for meetings with his lawyers.

Manafort must seek permission a week in advance to travel anywhere else within the domestic United States for business meetings that cannot be conducted by phone or online, the court ordered. Jackson ordered Manafort's wife to surrender all passports, barred him from foreign travel, and ordered him to stay away from transportation facilities including commercial and private airports and train and bus stations except for approved travel.