Steve Bannon expected to surrender Thursday on New York state charges related to border wall effort
Bannon was charged with diverting more than $1 million to pay an alleged co-conspirator and cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses. Prosecutors alleged that the donors, including some in New York, were falsely told that all the money contributed would go toward the construction effort.
Manhattan prosecutors subpoenaed bank records and quietly worked on the investigation over the past year as they investigated Trump and his real estate business, sources familiar with the matter previously told CNN. But the district attorney's office deferred a charging decision on Bannon until federal prosecutors concluded their case against his three co-defendants, who were not pardoned.
In April, two of the alleged co-conspirators in the border wall effort, Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato,
pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Kolfage also pleaded guilty to two counts of filing a false tax return and one count of wire fraud in connection with filing a false tax return.
Timothy Shea, a fourth man charged in the fundraising effort, was indicted on multiple counts of conspiracy for the alleged scheme, but a judge in June declared a mistrial after the jury informed her multiple times that it was deadlocked.