- Paul Manafort says he had "grown comfortable" at Northern Neck Regional Jail before he was moved to another facility.
- He wore polo shirts the jail director bought him and was the "best dressed inmate at Northern Neck!"
- Manafort describes his stays in different jails in his forthcoming memoir.
Former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort describes in his forthcoming memoir how he stayed fashionable, maintained a work environment and got "comfortable" during his month-long stay at Northern Neck Regional Jail before moving to another facility.
The warden allowed him to use a laptop and flash drive in his cell, using a 30-foot outdoor extension cord to get power from an outlet in the hall.
He bought snacks and clothes from the commissary to supplement the white polo shirts, gray sweatpants and Dexter sneakers the jail director bought him, writing that he was the "best dressed inmate at Northern Neck!"
And while he was in solitary confinement, he hired a retired FBI agent to meet him when his lawyers couldn't so that he could get out of his cell every day for legal meetings. "I had a real program working," he wrote in "Political Prisoner: Persecuted, Prosecuted, but Not Silenced," which will be released August 16.
Manafort, who was ultimately pardoned by then-President Donald Trump in 2020 for financial fraud and conspiracy convictions, seemed to have developed a fondness for this temporary jail, which he noted was in a rural and Republican community.
He called the staff "compassionate and professional" and said "they made me feel like I was surrounded by friends, not guards." He was upset about having to "start the whole process again" when he was moved to Alexandria, which he described as a "real" jail.
"I had been at Northern Neck for nearly a month, in which time I had come to figure things out and adjust them to meet my needs," he wrote. "In fact, I had the system working for me. TV twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week! Telephone from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.! Books. Control over my schedule…"
He describes his Alexandria experience as "almost POW-style solitary confinement" with lights on 24 hours a day and twice-weekly, 30-minute family visits. And his visits to the courthouse were "especially humbling."
But he got to see other prisoners on the walk to his cell in the courthouse. "A few of them recognized me and gave me fist bumps through the bars," he wrote.
Also, the judge allowed him to wear suits instead of jail jumpsuits if the jury was present. He quoted a US marshal's comment on his clothing after the marshal brought the suit to his cell: "'Oh by the way, those are dope clothes. I bet they cost a lot?'"
In another instance, he shared how one prisoner called him "Professor" on their way to jail, perhaps because of those clothes.
"Why, I don't know," he wrote. "Maybe it was the suit jacket I was still wearing. Either way, I took it as a sign of respect."
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