I love it that YANKEES BASEBALL tickets might doom Paul Manafort.

IMHO, it was a very smart move to save the baseball ticket stuff for close to the end. This is stuff ordinary jurors can relate to.

The potential lending bank questioned Manafort on a $200,000 charge he owed on his American express card. Manafort LIED and said that he'd just lent the card to his pal Rick Gates and that Gates had made the charge.

But then the Yankees team said that Manafort himself bought the tickets, that he'd bought these $700 per seat/per game season tickets for years, and that the $200,000 worth of season passes were in HIS name and sent to HIS address.

Sure looks like fraud to me, but I'm just a regular person who wouldn't buy one $700 baseball ticket, much less $200,000 worth -- like most of the jurors looking at Paul Manafort right now.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/08/10/paul-manafort-trial-day-9-live-coverage/?utm_term=.e6bb2d1ff5b5

Kirimca’s testimony is important because it links to the $16 million in loans Manafort received from Federal Savings Bank. During the loan processes, bank officials flagged the hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt on Manafort’s American Express credit card. The outstanding debt would make it more unlikely that the bank would offer a loan, and prosecutors have accused Manafort of falsifying his financial information –including information about the American Express charges– to secure the cash.

After Federal Savings Bank employees emailed Manafort to inquire about the American Express debt, Manafort told them that he loaned the card Rick Gates who purchased Yankees season tickets.

No correspondence with the Yankees indicated Gates would pay for the tickets or had them shipped to his home, Kirimca testified. He also testified that the Yankees don’t have any records showing Gates ever being a season ticket holder, information that undermines Manafort’s representation to the bank about the charges.

Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack introduced an email between Manafort a Yankees employee confirming renewal of his season tickets — $700 per seat at a total of $226,800. Manafort said he wanted to renew and informed the Yankees they would receive a wire transfer of $226,800 from Global Highway Limited.