Free Republic

New York prosecutors Wednesday announced the indictment of President Donald Trump's former campaign chief, Paul Manafort, only minutes after his sentencing in a federal case. The 16 charges unveiled by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance relate to mortgage fraud, conspiracy and falsifying business records. "No one is beyond the law in New York," Vance said in a statement. Manafort's alleged actions "strike at the heart of New York's sovereign interests, including the integrity of our residential mortgage market," Vance added.

In the public furor over revelations that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s office declined to pursue groping charges against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, the office’s defense has rested largely on insufficiency of evidence claims. In a statement released on Oct. 10, Chief Assistant DA Karen Friedman Agnifilo said that while the recording of Weinstein made by a victim working with the New York Police Department was “horrifying to listen to,” the office was ultimately unable to bring charges because “what emerged was insufficient to prove a crime ... which requires prosecutors to establish criminal intent.” The following day, Vance,...

Harvey Weinstein could be heading to prison. The New York Police Department said on Thursday that the embattled movie mogul is the subject of a newly opened investigation following an incident in 2004 when he allegedly forced a college student to perform oral sex on him at his Manhattan office. Lucia Evans (nee Stoller) told The New Yorker that the summer before her senior year, Weinstein met her at a club and asked her to come in for a meeting at his office.

Cy Vance’s glide path to reelection as Manhattan district attorney has hit a speed bump. Marc Fliedner, a civil-rights lawyer who lost a Democratic primary this fall to become Brooklyn district attorney, has announced a write-in campaign to challenge Vance. “I’m not doing any fundraising, I don’t have any staff, but it is accurate to say that I am a candidate via this grassroots write-in effort,” Fliedner said in a phone interview this morning. “It’s important we give voters an ethical choice in a landscape totally devoid of women’s rights and equal justice." Vance, first elected in 2009, is running...