Carl Hiaasen: Hmm, will they let me wear my smoking jacket in solitary?

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/carl-hiaasen/article182626261.html


Carl Hiaasen
Hmm, will they let me wear my smoking jacket in solitary?

By Carl Hiaasen
November 03, 2017 5:12 PM


You are Paul John Manafort Jr., former exalted campaign manager for Donald J. Trump.

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They found the wire transfers, too. The Internal Revenue Service says you didn’t pay taxes on the income. You begin to wonder how your lawyer can be so optimistic.

Reading pages 7 through 14 makes your colon twitch. They’ve listed all the payments from your shell companies to “vendors” in the states. Between June 2008 and August 2014, you spent more than $5.4 million on home improvements for your spread in Bridgehampton.

You’re wondering: How in the world could drywall cost so much? Or maybe it was that new duct work for the air conditioner.

There’s another $820,000 for landscaping, $112,000 for audio-video equipment and almost a million bucks on antique rugs. You are fully aware how ridiculous this appears, but those rugs are incredibly nice.

Same goes for the $1.3 million worth of men’s clothing you bought during those years. The suits are truly awesome — the tailor takes your inseam with a platinum tape measure.

You remind yourself it’s no crime to be rich in this country. You’ll plead innocent, go to trial, and your lawyer will work his magic!

But what if he doesn’t? What if a jury of ordinary folks can’t understand how a person as busy as you are could forget to register as a foreign agent, forget to mention his offshore bank accounts, and forget to pay taxes on $18 million?

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