Manhattan District Attorney Vance's case against Manafort ends after double jeopardy rule stands

A Manhattan district attorney’s effort to prosecute former Trump 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort has ended now that New York’s highest court has decided not to review a lower court rulings on the case.

The state's Court of Appeals made a decision last week to let stand a lower-court ruling that Manafort was barred by the double jeopardy rule, reported first Monday by The New York Times.

Manafort had faced state charges for mortgage fraud and other state felonies, crimes similar to those for which he was convicted in federal court, then pardoned for last month by Trump.

District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat, brought charges against Manafort in March 2019, with the purported intention of trying to ensure Manafort, who was on of several Trump 2016 campaign managers, would face prosecution even if pardoned, The Times also reported.

Manafort before being pardoned was serving a sentence of seven and a half years in a Pennsylvania federal prison after being convicted in 2018 on fraud charges related to the special council Robert Mueller's Russia collusion investigation.