Banker Tied to Manafort Reports a Burglary

NEW YORK — A burglar broke into a Manhattan penthouse early Tuesday and made off with a briefcase and an iPad belonging to a banker who once did work for President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, the police said.

The homeowner, David Fallarino, 38, is a loan officer at Citizens Bank who handled loan paperwork for Manafort, who was convicted last week on federal financial fraud charges related to his overseas lobbying work.

Fallarino, who was not implicated in wrongdoing, called the police around 3 a.m. Tuesday after discovering the break-in at his apartment on West 58th Street near Central Park, the police said. He told investigators that he was awakened two hours earlier by the sound of his front door slamming, the police said.

Fallarino told investigators he found a crowbar on his private terrace and discovered that the briefcase, the iPad and a pair of sneakers were missing from the living room, the police said. There were no signs of forced entry; Fallarino said he had left the terrace door open, police said.

The stolen items were worth about $2,050, police said. A wine cabinet on the terrace was found open, police said, and an unopened bottle was on the ground.

There were no arrests Tuesday, and police were poring over security camera video from the building and from others nearby to identify a suspect.

The nine-story building is a prewar co-op located one block south of Central Park; it has a 24-hour doorman, according to real estate listings.

Fallarino did not respond to an email or phone call seeking comment.

During Manafort’s trial in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, federal prosecutors introduced correspondence with Fallarino as evidence to help prove Manafort committed bank fraud.

Manafort was found guilty on eight of 18 counts, including charges he lied to Citizens Bank between December 2015 and March 2016 to obtain a $3.4 million loan for a condominium in Manhattan’s trendy SoHo neighborhood. The jury was deadlocked on two other counts that accused Manafort of engaging in a conspiracy to commit bank fraud to obtain the loans from Citizens Bank.

Fallarino appeared to be the point person who handled Manafort’s loan applications, but he was never called to testify, as were some other employees of Citizens Bank.

One of Manafort’s accountants, Cindy LaPorta, testified at trial that she had knowingly misrepresented his income and real estate holdings to Fallarino to help her client borrow from Citizens Bank.

For instance, she said she submitted a document to Fallarino falsely claiming that $1.5 million in income from a company that Manafort controlled was a loan from a third party that had been forgiven. That misrepresentation was part of a convoluted effort to make Manafort seem more creditworthy.