New York judge tosses state fraud case against Manafort

A New York judge Wednesday tossed the real estate fraud case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance against Paul Manafort, ruling that the charges violated the state’s double jeopardy laws.

Vance's office accused Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, of falsifying business records to obtain millions of dollars in residential mortgage loans in a scam that began in December 2015 and continued until three days before Trump's 2017 inauguration.

But Justice Maxwell Wiley of the New York County Supreme Court dismissed the case because Manafort, 70, had been indicted earlier this year for similar types of crimes uncovered by former special counsel Robert Mueller. The longtime GOP operative is serving a seven-and-a-half year prison sentence after a jury convicted him in one federal case and he pleaded guilty in another.