Rick Gates Freed of Curfew, GPS Monitoring After Manafort Testimony

(Bloomberg) -- Rick Gates, the star witness in Paul Manafort’s fraud trial, was freed from a curfew and GPS monitoring after a judge credited his cooperation with Special Counsel Robert Mueller and trial testimony against his former boss.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson granted the request by Gates, who has been under house arrest since his guilty plea in February. Jackson cited his compliance with his bail terms and his testimony in August under “difficult circumstances,” alluding to the withering cross-examination by Manafort’s attorneys in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.

Under the order on Monday, Gates must continue to live at his house in Richmond, Virginia, call probation officers once a week from a land line and submit to monthly inspections of his home. Gates, who is cooperating in Mueller’s investigation of President Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016, is awaiting sentencing by Jackson. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the U.S. and making false statements to U.S. investigators.

To contact the reporter on this story: David Voreacos in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, at dvoreacos@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeffrey D Grocott at jgrocott2@bloomberg.net, Peter Jeffrey

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