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 Oct. 19, 2018, 6:16 PM GMT / Updated Oct. 19, 2018, 9:14 PM GMT By Charlie Gile and Tom Winter 
 
 Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was rolled into a Virginia federal court Friday in a wheelchair, wearing a green prison uniform instead of his signature tailored suit. 
 
 The judge scheduled Manafort to be sentenced Feb. 8 for eight counts of tax evasion and bank fraud and dismissed the remaining charges against him. 
 
 Manafort, appearing visibly grayer, was pushed into court in a wheelchair, missing his right shoe. 
 
 "There are significant issues with Mr. Manafort’s health concerning confinement," his lawyer, Kevin Downing, told the judge. 
 
 Downing requested that the court expedite Manafort’s sentencing so he could be moved to a facility better equipped to deal with his health issues. 
 
 A jury in Alexandria convicted Manafort on eight counts of tax evasion and bank fraud counts in August, but were unable to reach a verdict on 10 additional counts, leaving Mueller's prosecutors to decide whether to retry him. The new ruling no longer gives them that option. 
 
 In September, Manafort took a plea deal based on separate charges filed by the Mueller team in Washington, agreeing to cooperate with investigators. Court filings in that case indicated that the prosecutors would seek to delay Manafort's sentence in the Virginia case until they were satisfied that he had answered all their questions as part of his cooperation agreement. 
 
 Both cases against Manafort involved his political consulting for the Russian-backed government of Ukraine and its former president, Viktor Yanukovych, well before Manafort served briefly as Trump's campaign chairman. Manafort was found guilty of intentionally dodging taxes on the millions he was paid for the work, by stashing it in overseas banks and using it to indulge his expensive tastes. 
 
 The Virginia federal judge, T.S. Ellis, denied an earlier request by Manafort to wear a suit to Friday's court hearing. 
 
 "Defendants who are in custody post-conviction are, as a matter of course, not entitled to appear for sentencing or any other hearing in street clothing," he said. 
 
 The judge said Manafort should be treated no differently. ||||| CLOSE The trial case against Paul Manafort over money laundering and tax evasion has entered jury deliberations. Kevin Johnson reports from Alexandria, Va. USA TODAY 
 
 epa06951198 Kevin Downing (L), Jay Nanavati (2-L), Richard Westing (C), Thomas Zehnle (2-R) and Brian Ketcham (L), attorneys representing former US Predisent Donald J. Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort, arrive to US District Court for the ongoing Manafort trial in Alexandria, Virginia, USA, 15 August 2018. Manafort is facing over a dozen charges including tax evasion and bank fraud. EPA-EFE/SHAWN THEW ORG XMIT: STX01 (Photo: SHAWN THEW, EPA-EFE) 
 
 ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The jury in the tax and bank fraud trial of Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, headed home for the weekend without reaching a verdict. The panel will reconvene Monday. 
 
 A juror sent a note to U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III requesting a 5 p.m. recess because of a previously scheduled "event." The nature of the event was not disclosed. Ellis approved the request. 
 
 Earlier on Friday, the judge said he was "optimistic that the case might end soon." 
 
 On Thursday, jurors deliberated for more than six hours and recessed after submitting four questions to Ellis, including a request for a redefinition of "reasonable doubt." 
 
 The panel must determine guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in order to convict Manafort on the 18 counts of tax and bank fraud lodged against him. 
 
 Separately, Ellis raised eyebrows Friday when he revealed that he had received unspecified threats during the trial and is under the protection of U.S. marshals. The judge made the disclosure during a separate hearing in which a coalition of news organizations sought the identities of jurors serving in the Manafort case. 
 
 Because of the intense public interest in the case and the emotion it has generated--including the threats against the 78-year-old jurist – Ellis said he would refuse to release the jurors' identities, at least for now. 
 
 The news organizations also appealed for the release of transcripts of secret bench conferences during the case involving prosecutors and Manafort's attorneys. Ellis said many of those transcripts, with the exception of a discussion about the ongoing investigation by Russia special counsel Robert Mueller, would be made public at the end of the trial. 
 
 Some of the matters, Ellis acknowledged Friday, involved unspecified issues related to the jury. 
 
 More: Manafort trial: Jury asks judge to redefine 'reasonable doubt' during first day of deliberations 
 
 More: Manafort trial: Why 'reasonable doubt' is hard to define in courtrooms 
 
 Prosecutors and defense attorneys have huddled privately numerous times throughout the trial, and only rarely have the contents of those meetings been disclosed. 
 
 He acknowledged the challenge from news organizations Friday, and heard an argument from attorney Matthew Kelley, representing the news organizations. 
 
 "A thirsty press is essential to a free country," Ellis said in open court, after the jury had retired to resume deliberations. 
 
 But much of Friday involved a game of waiting. 
 
 As courthouse employees passed in and out of the courtroom Friday afternoon, reporters played cards and read books and newspapers. A line of photographers and television crews remained stationed out front of the Albert V. Bryan Courthouse. 
 
 More: Five key points that could sway the jury in Paul Manafort's trial — and determine his fate 
 
 More: Paul Manafort trial: Judge T.S. Ellis III known as taskmaster, unafraid to speak his mind 
 
 Manafort is facing life in prison if he's found guilty on all of the 18 counts laid against him. The harshest sentence is likely if he's found guilty in the alleged bank fraud scheme prosecutors outlined during the trial. 
 
 Prosecutors offered documents and witnesses who testified that Manafort lied about his income and debt while seeking bank loans and directed his associates to doctor documents. In all, prosecutors have alleged that Manafort fraudulently secured more than $20 million in bank loans. 
 
 As President Trump was leaving the White House Friday and while jurors were still deliberating, the president attacked the Manafort trial and called it "very sad." He wouldn't discuss whether he'd consider pardoning Manafort if he was found guilty on any counts. 
 
 "When you look at what’s going on there, I think it’s a very sad day for our country," the president said. "He worked for me for a very short period of time. But you know what? He happens to be a very good person. 
 
 Trump added: "And I think it’s very sad what they’ve done to Paul Manafort." 
 
 CLOSE President Donald Trump refused to say whether he would pardon Paul Manafort, calling him a "very good person" as he left the White House for New York. Trump also again called out Turkey, saying the country has been a "problem for a long time." (Aug. 17) AP 
 
 Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2Mi49jX ||||| Manafort’s Northern Virginia trial on charges of bank fraud, tax evasion and failure to report foreign bank accounts is scheduled to begin July 25. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo Mueller team listening to Manafort’s jail phone calls Contrary to his lawyers’ court filings, the former Trump campaign chairman says he’s being treated like a ‘VIP’ in prison. 
 
 Paul Manafort may not be a free man. But the former Donald Trump campaign chairman’s jail conditions are hardly the stuff of Alcatraz. 
 
 According to telephone calls being monitored by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, Manafort has recently told people he’s being treated like a “VIP” at the Virginia prison where he’s been held since June 15. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 The longtime GOP operative’s living arrangements, described in an eight-page motion filed Wednesday by Mueller’s prosecutors, also include “unique privileges” like a private, self-contained cell that’s bigger than what other inmates get, a private bathroom and shower, a personal telephone and daily access between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 10 p.m. to a workspace where Manafort can meet with his lawyers and prepare for his upcoming criminal trials. 
 
 Manafort also doesn’t have to wear a prison uniform at the Northern Neck Regional Jail about two hours south of Washington D.C. 
 
 But there are some drawbacks. Mueller’s team on Wednesday revealed it can listen in on any phone calls that Manafort has with people other than his lawyers, and it’s one of those conversations that prosecutors are now using in their opposition to the defendant’s request to postpone his upcoming Virginia trial until after a separate criminal case is finished in Washington D.C. 
 
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 Andrew Weissmann, a special counsel prosecutor leading the Manafort case, argued in the motion that Manafort may have ulterior motives in shifting around the order of his trials. As evidence, he cited a June 20 monitored phone call Manafort had with an unnamed person who did not believe the Washington D.C. venue was favorable. There, Manafort explained: “Think about how it’ll play elsewhere…There is a strategy to it, even in failure, but there’s a hope in it.” 
 
 Manafort's lawyers later on Wednesday accused Mueller's team of showing a "lack of concern" for due process. 
 
 "The Special Counsel’s opposition is self-serving and inaccurate. While the opposition does not generally misrepresent the confinement conditions its cavalier dismissal of the challenges of preparing for back-to-back complex white collar criminal trials while the defendant is in custody shows a lack of concern with fairness or due process," the lawyers wrote. 
 
 The lawyers also accused Mueller's team of taking some of Manafort's comments out of context. 
 
 "Armed with personal conversations between Mr. Manafort and his family, the Special Counsel selects snippets to support its version of events," they wrote. "The Special Counsel does not pause to consider the reasons a detained defendant might have to make his situation sound better when speaking with concerned friends and family." 
 
 For now, Manafort’s Northern Virginia trial on charges of bank fraud, tax evasion and failure to report foreign bank accounts is scheduled to begin July 25. But before that happens, U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III has scheduled oral arguments for Tuesday on Manafort’s motion to postpone the proceedings, as well as a related request for a change of venue from Alexandria to Roanoke, Virginia. 
 
 Ellis on Tuesday also ordered Manafort to be transferred to a detention center in Alexandria and rejected a last-minute request from the defendant’s lawyers to let their client continue to stay at the Northern Neck prison after they’d previously complained about logistical challenges that were hurting their ability to prepare for the trial. 
 
 “It is surprising and confusing when counsel identifies a problem and then opposes the most logical solution to that problem,” the judge wrote in a footnote in his decision, where he also questioned the Manafort lawyers’ argument about concerns for their client’s safety in Alexandria. The detention center’s staff are “very familiar with housing high-profile defendants including foreign and domestic terrorists, spies and traitors,” Ellis wrote. 
 
 Also Tuesday, Ellis issued an order demanding Manafort’s appearance in his courtroom for the start of the July 25 trial. 
 
 In another filing, Mueller’s team on Wednesday also asked the federal court to issue 100 blank subpoenas to potential witnesses in the upcoming Manafort trial. And Ellis also ordered on Wednesday that a panel of prospective jurors be convened on July 24 to fill out a questionnaire, indicating that plans for the trial are proceeding rapidly. 
 
 In arguing against the trial’s delay, Mueller team’s offered Ellis a very different picture of Manafort’s prison conditions compared with the descriptions detailed by attorneys for the former Trump campaign leader. Last week, in an appeal to a federal appeals court in Washington aimed at overturning their client’s pre-trial jailing, the lawyers complained that Manafort was “locked in his cell for at least 23 hours per day (excluding visits from his attorneys)” and that he was in “solitary confinement because the facility cannot otherwise guarantee his safety.” 
 
 But Manafort has been hardly cut off from the outside world, according to the Mueller prosecutors. He has access to a personal telephone in his cell that he’s allowed to use for more than 12 hours a day to speak with his lawyers and other people. During the last three weeks, Manafort has also had more than 100 phone calls with his lawyers, speaking with them every day and often several times a day, as well as another 200 calls with other people. 
 
 Mueller’s team also disputed what defense attorneys have told the court concerning the rules surrounding how much time Manafort can spend on the phone. While Manafort’s lawyers have said he’s limited to 10 minutes per call, the special counsel’s office countered that was “incorrect” and explained that the calls can actually last 15 minutes, with no restrictions on how many calls he makes. 
 
 “Meaning that Manafort immediately can reconnect with his attorneys whenever the fifteen minutes expire,” Weissman wrote. Citing telephone logs, the Mueller prosecutor added that Manafort has had “successive” phone sessions with his lawyers lasting more than 40 minutes. 
 
 Manafort’s calls with his lawyers “are not monitored,” Weissman said. 
 
 While in prison, Manafort also has access to a laptop to review documents and prepare for his trial, and the jail has “made extra accommodations” for Manafort to use the computer, including an extension cord that lets him work in his cell so he doesn’t have to go to the separate workspace. 
 
 Manafort is not allowed to send or receive emails while in jail. But Mueller’s prosecutors said Manafort “appears to have developed a workaround.” During his monitored phone calls, Manafort has told people he reads and composes emails on a second laptop that his lawyers have “shuttled in and out” of the jail. Then his lawyers sent the messages after they’ve left the prison.
– Paul Manafort was there in a Virginia federal courtroom Friday to hear details on his sentencing, and his appearance seemed markedly different than the last time he was seen in public. NBC News notes the 69-year-old looked "visibly grayer," and that he showed up, in a wheelchair, wearing a green prison jumpsuit—not his usual tailored suit—and missing his right shoe. "There are significant issues with Mr. Manafort's health concerning confinement," his lawyer, Kevin Downing, told the judge, asking that the sentencing be sped up so Manafort, if kept in prison, could be moved to a facility better able to manage his maladies. A person said to be "familiar with Manafort's condition" tells CNN his issue is serious and is inflammation-based, tied to what he's been eating. Judge TS Ellis had earlier struck down the Manafort legal team's request that their client be permitted to wear a regular suit to Friday's hearing, with Ellis noting "defendants who are in custody post-conviction are, as a matter of course, not entitled to appear for sentencing or any other hearing in street clothing," per NBC. Ellis gave Manafort a sentencing date of Feb. 8, where he'll hear his fate on eight counts of tax evasion and bank fraud. The judge also dismissed 10 additional charges on which the jury deadlocked during the trial, though CNN notes if Manafort doesn't keep cooperating with Robert Mueller's investigation, those charges could be reinstated. Earlier this week, CNN reported Manafort and his attorneys visited Robert Mueller's DC office at least nine times over the past month, where they hunkered down for about six hours each time. (Manafort's deal to avoid a second trial.)