Paul Manafort's former cellmate says people in prison 'kissed his ass' because he was famous and didn't rat on Trump

• William Mersey was Paul Manafort's cellmate for several weeks at a Manhattan federal prison in 2019.
• He described his experience living with Trump's former campaign chairman for The Daily Beast.

Paul Manafort, former President Donald Trump's former campaign manager, faced no trouble in prison because other people in prison loved his fame and respected that he didn't snitch on President Donald Trump, his former cellmate said.

In an essay for The Daily Beast, William Mersey said he roomed with Manafort at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, New York City, for several weeks in 2019.

At the time, Mersey said he was serving a sentence on a tax-fraud charges. Manafort was at the time serving serving a seven-and-a-half year sentence for tax and bank fraud as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

"Manafort did not suffer at MCC," Mersey wrote. "Inmates kissed his ass because he was famous, did not rat out his boss, and could hopefully give them lessons on money laundering."

Mersey wrote that Manafort was at first "a breath of fresh air with his infamy and intellect" but ultimately he "was a full-of-crap dandy."

"That's the kind of guy Manafort was: A user who gravitated to prisoners who kissed his ass," he wrote.

Manafort was transferred to FCI Loretto in Pennsylvania in August 2019, and was released from prison in May 2020 due to risks posed by COVID-19. He was permitted to serve the rest of his sentence in home confinement.

In December 2021, Trump pardoned Manafort of several crimes.

Now free from prison, Manafort is releasing a book titled "Political Prisoner" in August.

The book hsa been billed as a "riveting account" of his time in prison, in which he says he was forced into solitary confinement "because he wouldn't turn against the President of the US."

However, Mersey wrote that Manafort served just one day in solitary before being sent to general population.

Representatives for Manafort did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.