NY AG is suing Trump and two of his kids seeking a minimum of $250 million in damages

Manhattan prosecutors rest their Trump Organization case without calling last witness
Molly Crane-Newman, New York Daily News
Mon, November 21, 2022 at 5:50 PM

Manhattan prosecutors rested their case against the Trump Organization on Monday without calling their last witness — renewing questions about whether the district attorney still has his sights set on Donald Trump.

Much of the DA’s case against the former president’s family real estate business, which lasted eight days spread out over three weeks, focused on two of its senior executives. They were company Controller Jeff McConney and his convicted ex-boss, Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg.

Weisselberg, 75 — the company’s veteran financial gatekeeper who pleaded guilty to the scheme at the heart of the case in August — told jurors that he’d worked with McConney to dodge taxes on lavish perks that Trump put in Weisselberg’s pocket over 15 years.

The $1.7 million in so-called fringe benefits included rent on an Upper West Side apartment with Hudson River views, his son Barry Weisselberg’s rent, over $100,000 in parking garage fees, fancy furniture and other pricey expenses unrelated to his job as CFO. Weisselberg said Trump personally paid for his grandkids’ tuition at Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School, too.

For the companies to be held criminally responsible, prosecutors must prove Weisselberg committed the tax fraud in his official capacity and that the company benefited from it. Weisselberg acknowledged both were true last week.

Trump Org lawyers have argued that the CFO was a bad apple who carried out the crimes in secret. The holding company and its subsidiary Trump Payroll Corporation have pleaded not guilty to a host of criminal tax fraud charges.

The trusted company man who Trump and his late father, Fred, placed in charge of their finances for five decades didn’t accuse anyone in the family of criminal wrongdoing. Weisselberg testified for the prosecution in exchange for a reduced prison sentence and is expected to be sentenced soon to five months jail time, under the plea deal’s terms.

Weisselberg, whose lawyers are paid by the Trump Org, was demoted to senior adviser after his arrest. His hefty salary and bonus were not changed.

McConney admitted to helping Weisselberg and the company’s chief operating officer, Matthew Calamari, Sr., cheat on their taxes for years while working down the hall from Trump at his namesake tower on Fifth Ave. The controller received immunity for testifying before the grand jury.

Among the witnesses, prosecutors also called an accounts payable supervisor who cut checks at Trump Tower, a forensic accountant from the DA’s office, and a state tax auditor. They declined to call Donald Bender from the Trump Organization’s former accounting firm, Mazars, whom Trump has sought to blame for the fraud.

The defense called Bender as a witness. He briefly testified about preparing the Trump Organization’s tax returns for more than 35 years and was expected to continue on the stand Tuesday.

The case stems from the DA’s three-year Trump probe. The investigators who were initially steering it, Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, abruptly resigned after DA Alvin Bragg took over the case from his predecessor, Cyrus Vance, Jr.

Pomerantz’s resignation letter, shared with the New York Times, described Bragg’s “misguided” unwillingness to charge Trump as his reason for quitting. Bragg and his communications team have repeatedly pushed back on that narrative.

The Times on Monday reported that the DA is now concentrating on the probe’s initial focus: a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election to silence her about a sexual encounter with Trump, a liaison he denies. Bragg is considering a new case against Weisselberg related to unrelated insurance fraud allegations to pressure him to share details of the hush-money payment, according to the report.

Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, served three years in federal custody for the payment, which he said was done at the candidate’s direction. Weisselberg received federal immunity for testifying against Cohen in that case.

In February, he tried to get the DA’s case against him thrown out because investigators had spent so much time talking to Cohen, who the CFO argued wielded a “vendetta” against him because of his cooperation.

The Daily News could not confirm whether the DA is considering new charges against Weisselberg. His lawyer Nick Gravante declined to comment on the possibility of a new case.

Daniels’ lawyer Clark Brewster said she had not heard from the Manhattan DA since the office told her to expect an interview request, which never came, more than a year ago. Cohen said he had not spoken to Bragg or anyone from his office. DA spokeswoman Danielle Filson declined to comment.

Trump Had Losses of $900 Million in Two Years, Jury Told
Patricia Hurtado | Bloomberg
Tue, November 22, 2022 at 5:00 PM

(Bloomberg) -- An accountant who handled the tax returns of some Trump Organization executives told a jury that Donald Trump reported a total of about $900 million in operating losses over two years.

Donald Bender of Mazars USA LLP -- who prepared Trump’s tax returns for years and helped prepare returns for former Trump Organization’s chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg -- was the first defense witness in the tax fraud trial of two of the former president’s companies, Trump Payroll Corp. and Trump Corp. Trump wasn’t charged.

With the trial entering its fourth week in state court in Manhattan, prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked Bender during cross-examination whether he remembered Trump reporting losses in some years.

“Do you recall in 2010 that Donald Trump had almost $200 million in losses?” she asked.

“Yes,” Bender said.

“And in 2009, did Donald Trump have almost $700 million in losses?” she asked.

“That sounds about right,” Bender said.

Read More: Trump Said Fight It When DA Charged His Firms With Tax Fraud

The New York Times has previously reported that Trump suffered business losses, but Bender’s testimony was the first public confirmation from a professional who saw or helped prepare Trump’s tax returns.

Hoffinger asked Bender if he prepared Donald Trump’s tax returns for free. The accountant scoffed with surprise, shook his head. and said: “No.”

“It was a big return, a really big return, it’s like this high,” he said, raising his hands about three feet over his head.

Hoffinger showed Bender a series of spreadsheets kept by the Trump companies that showed more than $1 million in annual bonuses was paid out from various Trump-owned entities to executives like Weisselberg, claiming they were independent contractors. Bender said the first time he’d seen those records was when prosecutors showed them to him last year.

Hoffinger asked Bender what his reaction would’ve been if he’d seen them at the time they were prepared.

“I probably would’ve had a heart attack,” Bender said. “I would be pretty concerned, that they were reducing their income by these amounts.”

“What would you have done if you’d been aware or been provided with these spreadsheets?” Hoffinger asked.

Mazars “would have had a pretty serious conversation with the client,” he replied.

Defense lawyers sought to highlight that Bender, who worked as the company’s outside accountant for about 35 years, failed to safeguard the companies from Weisselberg’s tax fraud. But during her questioning, Hoffinger tried to show that the accountant was also kept in the dark by Weisselberg, including that the CFO got a rent-free apartment as well as luxury cars.

“We did the due diligence,” Bender insisted. “I wasn’t blindly accepting him. He said it was appropriate. We expected him to live up to the agreement,” and to be truthful, he said.

The trial is in recess for the Thanksgiving holiday. Bender continues his testimony Monday.

Weissleberg, who has pleaded guilty to tax fraud charges, testified for the prosecution earlier during the trial. He told the jury he’s hoping for a more lenient sentence of just 100 days in jail rather than a maximum 15-year prison term.

The case is People v. Trump Organization, 01473-2021, New York State Supreme Court (Manhattan).

Trump Org. rests case on sour note in NY tax fraud trial after judge scolds defense over 11th-hour evidence dump
Laura Italiano | BusinessInsider
Mon, November 28, 2022 at 5:08 PM

Lawyers for Trump's real-estate empire rested their case Monday at their Manhattan tax fraud trial.

First, though, the trial judge scolded Trump Organization lawyers over an 11th-hour evidence dump.

"Good old-fashioned sandbagging," Justice Juan Merchan called the late defense filing.

The defense rested Monday in the five-week-long Manhattan tax fraud trial of Donald Trump's international real-estate empire — but not before getting a tongue-lashing from the judge over an 11th-hour evidence dump.

"It's inconsiderate at a minimum," New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan scolded defense lawyers, who at midnight Sunday had filed 18 new exhibits they'd hoped to show jurors on the last day of their case.

"There's simply no justification," for the last-minute introduction of a stack of journal entries, reports, and emails, Merchan said, likening it to "good old-fashioned sandbagging."

"I won't accept it again," the judge warned the defense, as jurors and their witness, Trump Organization longtime accountant Donald Bender, waited outside the courtroom for the last day of testimony to begin.

"It's almost as if you really don't want me to rule on the issue," he said. "It's almost as if you don't want me to get it right," the typically mild-tempered judge said, his voice angry.

"I'm not going to allow you to show a bunch of exhibits that the people haven't had a chance to look at," the judge added.

In another blow to the defense, the judge denied a defense request to have Bender declared a hostile witness, a status that would have given them more leeway in asking leading questions.

The judge also appeared skeptical on Monday of a newly-stated defense theory.

Two Trump Organization insiders — ex-CFO Allen Weisselberg and top payroll executive Jeffrey McConney — told jurors earlier this month that they realize they broke the law when they ran the tax-dodge scheme at the center of the trial.

On Monday, defense lawyers told the judge that during summations, they'll tell jurors that although McConney and Weisselberg know now that they broke the law, they didn't know it at the time.

For Trump Organization to be criminally liable in the payroll tax scheme, prosecutors must prove that the two executives knowingly conspired and schemed to dodge payroll taxes, and did so to benefit not only themselves but the company as well.

The defense will try to shift blame away from Trump and onto Bender, the high-priced accountant they'll say should have blown an early whistle on the scheme.

Defense lawyers are also expected to tell jurors that the leadership at the very top of the company — meaning Donald Trump and his three eldest children, who have all served as vice presidents — were in the dark about the 15-year payroll scheme, though dozens of memos, invoices, and other documents bear a Trump signature.

The defense is also expected to tell jurors that Trump was just being generous and had no idea that his C-suite was cheating on taxes when he signed off on bonuses, raises, and tax-free perks like personal cars and apartments.

The two sides were able to compromise on a limited number of final exhibits, and the defense rested its case in the afternoon.

Jurors were told to return on Thursday when they will hear the first of two days worth of closing arguments.

Meanwhile, the two sides will appear before the judge Tuesday morning to fine-tune what jurors will be told by the judge just before they begin deliberations.

So far, the judge has told prosecutors and the defense that when he instructs, or "charges" the jury on the law, he'll rely on the state penal law's standard jury instructions concerning corporate liability.

Trump's real-estate and golf resort company face a maximum of $1.6 million in fines if convicted of scheming and conspiring to defraud tax authorities and falsifying years of wage and tax statements.

oliver clotheshoffe wrote:

Where's Temple, is he being deprogrammed or something?

I heard on rumor that he had an attack of Cyber Monday Blues, when he couldn't get his Twitter account deactivated after seeing That Elon Musk has allowed Trump activated with a blue checkmark.

Verdict in Trump Trial Could Come Down to Three Little Words
Ben Protess, Jonah E. Bromwich and William K. Rashbaum | NYTimes
Wed, November 30, 2022 at 12:09 PM

NEW YORK — Despite all the talk of fancy apartments, free Mercedes-Benzes and cash flowing at Christmastime, the criminal tax fraud trial of Donald Trump’s family business could come down to three mundane words: “in behalf of.”

The company stands accused of doling out those off-the-books perks to several executives, who failed to pay taxes on them. The scheme’s architect — the Trump Organization’s longtime chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg — pleaded guilty and testified at trial.

The company, however, is not automatically guilty of his crimes. Under New York law, prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office must prove that Weisselberg committed his many felonies “in behalf of” the Trump Organization, a clunky phrase that the judge overseeing the case has, in something of an understatement, called “a confusing area of the law.”

Ordinarily, when a company’s financial whiz becomes a star witness against it, things are not looking great. But if the Trump Organization has any hope of an acquittal or a hung jury after weeks of embarrassing revelations, it rests on this phrase, which has set off fierce semantic debate. The company’s lawyers have argued that the prosecution must prove that Weisselberg intended to benefit the corporation when he engineered the scheme — and that “in behalf of” can mean nothing else.

Ultimately, it falls to the judge, Juan Merchan, to decode the mystifying words. And in court Tuesday, with the jurors absent, he appeared to agree with the defense’s interpretation.

What prosecutors will need to show, he said, “is there was some intent to benefit the corporation.”

He added, however, that prosecutors need not prove that helping the Trump Organization had been Weisselberg’s primary goal, thwarting the defense’s most far-reaching argument.

Merchan is an even-keeled, gray-haired jurist who has presided over a broad array of cases, including two base jumpers who leaped from One World Trade Center and a man stabbed to death with a fork. This trial, however, has uniquely high-stakes implications: It has enraged the former president and his ranks of fervent supporters and could permanently stain his family business while reverberating through the 2024 presidential campaign.

And it might all come down to four head-scratching syllables.

Already, Merchan has said the company’s lawyers can tell jurors in their closing arguments Thursday that prosecutors failed to prove that Weisselberg intended to benefit the company. And once the jurors start deliberating in the coming days, if they express confusion about the meaning of “in behalf of,” the judge may well use the defense’s preferred “intent” interpretation to clarify.

In addition to proving that Weisselberg was acting “in behalf of” the Trump Organization, New York criminal law requires that prosecutors establish that he was a “high managerial agent” of the company and that he committed the crimes “within the scope of his employment.” Neither of those requirements is much in dispute.

But the prosecution and the defense spent weeks dissecting and debating the meaning of “in behalf of”: The company’s lawyers have called it “unconstitutionally vague,” while the prosecution argued that the defense had “misstated the law” to the jury.

Even the judge pointed out that “this statute has been on the books for a long time, and to my knowledge, this really hasn’t been argued to the extent it’s being argued now.”

There is little in New York law — or in past cases — that clarifies the meaning, Merchan noted when he first addressed the issue in October. The few cases that exist were either irrelevant to the Trump trial or, in his mind, were decided in error.

And so, like anyone else, the judge resorted to Merriam-Webster. The dictionary’s website, originally cited in the defense’s court papers, suggested that — unlike the phrase “on behalf of” — “in behalf of” essentially means “for the benefit of.”

The judge also consulted various legal treatises, one of which, he said, had found that the “in behalf of” phrase “should limit corporate liability to the conduct engaged in for the corporation’s benefit and not mere personal gain.”

The debate heated up last week when prosecutors and defense lawyers laid out their contrasting interpretations — and whether Weisselberg’s testimony helped or hurt them.

A prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, disputed the defense’s contention that he had to prove that Weisselberg intended to benefit the Trump Organization — or show that the corporation did indeed benefit. Nevertheless, he said, there was “ample evidence of both.”

Weisselberg, for example, testified that the perks saved the company money in taxes. Weisselberg also subtracted the cost of some benefits from his overall compensation, essentially repaying the company.

Yet a defense lawyer, Alan Futerfas, noted that Weisselberg had repeatedly testified that he acted for his own benefit, not for the company or the Trump family. Prosecutors have not accused Trump or anyone in his family of taking part in the scheme.

On the witness stand, Weisselberg also admitted to betraying the company that had employed him for decades and acknowledged that Trump did not authorize him to carry out the scheme. When Futerfas asked Weisselberg, “Were you reducing your compensation because you didn’t want to hurt the company?” he responded, “No, my intention was to save pretax dollars.”

When making his case to the judge last week, Futerfas also argued that the language of the New York law itself was so confounding that the case should be thrown out.

“All parties have struggled to determine what those words mean, particularly in the context of this case,” he said, adding that it was “very difficult, almost impossible” to ascertain what had been intended by legislators when they wrote the law in the 1960s.

Adam Kaufmann, a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office for nearly two decades who oversaw white-collar cases as the chief of its investigations division, said the “in behalf of” issue seldom arose, because the actions of high-ranking officials in such cases almost always benefit a company.

“It’s not an issue that I recall seeing before,” Kaufmann said.

2022 The New York Times Company

I AM GOING TO SUE TRUMP for being president and causing me all the grief and anguish I suffer from reading Temple's posts.

I figure about ten million would make me feel better.

Admin wrote:

oliver clotheshoffe wrote:

Where's Temple, is he being deprogrammed or something?

I heard on rumor that he had an attack of Cyber Monday Blues, when he couldn't get his Twitter account deactivated after seeing That Elon Musk has allowed Trump activated with a blue checkmark.

I would've guessed he underwent reassignment surgery and has been in recovery .. It would explain a lot

Trump Org hopes to win its Manhattan tax-fraud trial with an 'ignorance' defense — a Trump hallmark
Laura Italiano | INSIDER
Wed, November 30, 2022 at 2:49 PM
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Summations are Thursday and Friday in the Manhattan tax-fraud trial of the Trump Organization.

The defense will say Trump and top execs were too trusting or distracted to knowingly commit fraud.

Trump's real-estate empire faces $1.6 million in penalties — and 'felon' status — if convicted.

Donald Trump may have once referred to himself as "a very stable genius," but that's not at all how Trump Organization lawyers hope a Manhattan tax-fraud jury sees him or his top executives.

Instead, in day-long closing arguments Thursday, company lawyers are set to argue that Trump and his company's two key money men were too trusting, too distracted, or just too plain dumb to knowingly commit fraud.

Call it the "ignorance defense," where Trump knew nothing of a C-suite-wide, decade-long tax-dodge scheme, and his top finance executives had only the foggiest idea they were breaking rudimentary tax laws — until they got caught.

It won't take much for such a defense to tip the scales. If it confuses or convinces even a single juror, the ignorance defense could deadlock deliberations and stave off a possible $1.6 million in penalties and the black eye of a felony conviction for Trump's namesake real-estate and golf-resort company.

The strategy has taken shape since Halloween, when jurors heard opening statements in the New York Supreme Court case, inside a cavernous courtroom on the 15th floor of an Art Deco-style courthouse in lower Manhattan.

Trump was a big-picture guy who was totally in the dark, jurors were told in openings, about the payroll-tax funny business that ran rampant under his nose for years just down the hall from his desk at Trump Tower, his Fifth Avenue skyscraper.

Trump had no idea, jurors heard, that a handful of his top executives were saving hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in taxes through the scheme, which let the executives receive large chunks of their pay as cars, Trump-branded apartments, flat-screen televisions, and even tuition payments.

These "perks" were studiously tracked as executive compensation in internal Trump Organization records but systematically kept off the company's W-2 forms, jurors were told by former CFO Allen Weisselberg and top payroll man Jeffrey McConney.

Star prosecution witnesses with arguably mixed loyalties, the two told jurors they never let anyone named Trump in on the scheme.

Jurors may well wonder how Donald Trump, or Eric Trump, or Donald Trump, Jr., could truly have been ignorant of the scheme when the three of them personally signed off on so many of the perks. But the defense has been laying the groundwork for a ready answer: Trump was just being generous.

"Donald Trump didn't know that Allen Weisselberg was cheating on Allen Weisselberg's taxes," as defense lawyer Susan Necheles told jurors in openings.

Weisselberg even teared up on the witness stand as he described "betraying" the Trump family by keeping them ignorant of the tax shenanigans for more than a decade. It's testimony that may stick with jurors — a display of apparent emotion in a trial otherwise packed with Excel spreadsheets and accounting ledger entries.

Ignorance has been a hallmark Trump defense through the years, floated as a hedge against fraud for his bogus claims of having "won" the 2020 election, and when there's been blowback for the company he's kept, including, most recently, white supremacist Nick Fuente.

In this trial, though, the ignorance defense goes into overdrive, and doesn't stop with a supposedly clueless Trump.

The defense has said it also plans to argue that Weisselberg and McConney themselves had little idea — at the time — that their tax-dodging was illegal or that it benefitted anyone but themselves, two key elements to proving corporate liability.

The pair told jurors they had relied on Donald Bender, the Trump Organization's longtime outside accountant from the Mazars, USA, accounting firm, to keep them honest, and they've implied that where Donald Trump knew nothing of the scheme, Donald Bender knew — or should have known— everything.

Weisselberg and McConney, the defense will argue, thought they had a tacit green light from Bender as they schemed, conspired and cheated — though both acknowledged on the stand that they now realize they committed tax fraud.

And they had only the vaguest idea, if any, that their scheme helped anyone beyond themselves, they told jurors.

"My intention was to save pre-tax dollars," Weisselberg testified on November 17, his second of three days on the witness stand.

"That was your sole focus, for you to get this pre-taxed dollars, correct?" Necheles, the defense lawyer, asked him.

"Yes," Weisselberg answered.

Defense closings are expected to last through Thursday, with prosecution closings set for Friday

Deliberations have started in the Trump Organization tax fraud trial and the judge told jurors to 'set aside' any Trump biases
Laura Italiano | INSIDER
Mon, December 5, 2022 at 9:47 AM

Deliberations began Monday in the Trump Organization tax-fraud trial.

Jurors must decide if the company is criminally liable for its top financial executives' tax crimes.

'Set aside any personal opinions or biases you may have against Trump,' the judge instructed.

The jury has begun deliberations in the Trump Organization tax-fraud trial in Manhattan — but first, jurors were reminded of their promise to set aside any bias they may have against former President Donald Trump or his company.

"Jurors, you will recall that during jury selection, you promised that you would set aside any personal opinions or biases you may have against Donald Trump or his family," they were instructed by New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who has presided over the six-week trial.

"I now remind you of your promises and remind you that Donald Trump and his family are not on trial here before you," the judge told them as part of hour-long instructions given Monday morning before the start of their deliberations.

Three of the sworn jurors — a full quarter of the jury — said during jury selection that they don't like Trump or his politics. But the three also promised to be fair and to weigh the trial evidence without bias.

It's a mostly minority, mostly middle-class jury that has now been sent to the deliberations room, a room equipped with a laptop, a large monitor, and some 400 financial records, including some that are thousands of pages long.

The jury must determine if two subsidiaries of the former president's company — the Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation, both doing business as the Trump Organization — are criminally liable for a decade-long tax-dodge scheme run by the company's two top financial executives.

Both of these executives, ex-CFO Allen Weisselberg and payroll chief Jeffrey McConney, have admitted they systematically broke the law by cooking the payroll books.

Prosecutors have said they did so to save hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes a year for the company's top executives, a half-dozen men one rung down the corporate ladder from the Trump family itself.

To find the subsidiaries guilty of nine tax-related crimes — including scheme to defraud, conspiracy, and falsifying records — jurors must agree that Weisselberg and/or McConney intended to enrich the company, not just themselves.

They must acquit the subsidiaries of any counts if they find the two top moneymen acted merely for their own personal gain.

Just another clown show.

Trump Organization Found Guilty In Tax Fraud Trial
Marita Vlachou
Tue, December 6, 2022 at 1:57 PM

A New York jury found the Trump Organization, a group of business entities owned by former President Donald Trump, guilty of tax fraud and other crimes.

The panel’s decision was announced in New York’s Supreme Court on Tuesday, the second day of jury deliberations. The Trump Organization could be required to pay up to $1.6 million in fines, a relatively small amount considering the size of the companies.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office alleged the company engaged in a 15-year tax fraud scheme, with executives reaping off-the-books compensation in the form of gifts to help them avoid paying income tax.

New York prosecutors spent three years investigating Trump and his companies, according to the AP. Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told jurors on Thursday that Trump “knew exactly what was going on” with his company’s fraud.

The prosecution relied on the testimony of Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer who had worked for the Trump company since 1973.

Weisselberg pleaded guilty to the 15 counts he was charged with — including conspiracy, grand larceny, criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records — in a deal with prosecutors. He admitted to avoiding taxes on about $1.7 million.

The prosecution described Weisselberg as a “high managerial agent” for the company and said the Trump Organization stood to benefit from his lawbreaking.

The defense claimed Weisselberg’s actions benefited himself, not the company, and claimed the Trump Organization is innocent of wrongdoing, according to The Associated Press.

“We are here today for one reason and one reason only: the greed of Allen Weisselberg,” Susan Necheles, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, said Thursday.

Trump, who wasn’t personally charged in the case, denied he knew about the scheme. On Sunday, he called the case a “Witch Hunt!” and a “SCAM!”

Trump recently launched his 2024 presidential bid, despite ongoing criminal probes.

One person is taking the fall for 15 years of tax evasion at The Trump Organization
Ananya Bhattacharya | Quartz
Wed, December 7, 2022 at 2:37 AM

Ex-president Donald Trump has not been convicted in this case, but there are other legal woes mounting.
Two entities under The Trump Organization’s umbrella have been convicted of criminal tax fraud. It’s a first for Donald Trump’s company, set to tarnish the former president’s brand of successful businessman.

A New York State Supreme Court jury convicted the Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation for “engaging in a 15-year scheme to defraud, as well as for conspiracy, criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records,” the Manhattan District Attorney’s office announced yesterday (Dec. 6).

The DA’s investigation revealed that several trusted executives and managers—chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg and his son, as well as chief operating officer Matthew Calamari, Sr. and his son—received substantial amounts of their compensation in the form of “off the books” personal expenses which the companies purposefully did not report in company tax reporting forms, so that those executives and managers could evade paying taxes on the income.

Lawyers for The Trump Organization pinned the blame solely on Weisselberg. In August, the CFO, who’s currently on leave, entered a guilty plea and accepted a deal that caps a prison sentence at five months in exchange for his testimony. The star witness will be sentenced separately.

The Trump Organization denounced the verdict, and said it plans to appeal. “Weisselberg testified under oath that he ‘betrayed’ the trust the company had placed in him. The notion that a company could be held responsible for an employee’s actions, to benefit themselves, on their own personal tax returns is simply preposterous,” the company told the New York Times in a statement.

The Trump Organization’s convictions, in the Manhattan district attorney’s words
This was a case about greed and cheating. In Manhattan, no corporation is above the law. For 15 years the Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation got away with a scheme that awarded high-level executives with lavish perks and compensation while intentionally concealing the benefits from the taxing authorities to avoid paying taxes. —Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg Jr.

Trump Organization’s convictions, by the digits

6 weeks: Duration of the trial

17: Criminal counts Trump’s organizations were found guilty on

10: Hours it took the jury to make a decision

$1.6 billion: Fines the company faces. The sentencing date is set for Jan. 13. It’s a measly amount for a big company but could have far-reaching business consequences, including making it harder to get loans and make deals in the future

7: Witnesses who testified during the trial, including Weisselberg and senior vice-president and controller Jeffrey McConney, who oversaw all financial transactions and financial documents. McConney was indicted in 2021 and has been offering key testimony after striking an immunity deal. He’s the one that said the practice of treating executives like independent contractors at the organization dates back to the ‘80s. “Think of The Trump Organization as a small, one-teller bank,” Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, told The Daily Beast last year. “Donald [Trump] would be the president. Allen [Weisselberg] would be the branch manager. Jeff [McConney] would be the teller. Every single transaction was booked through McConney.”

$1.76 million: Unreported compensation received by Weisselberg, “a prime beneficiary” of the scheme, including payment of rent on a luxury apartment in Manhattan, utilities, parking garage expenses, Mercedes Benz cars for himself and his wife, home furnishings, cash for personal holiday tips and payment of his grandchildren’s private school tuition.

Person of interest: Donald Trump

The former president was not on trial, but prosecutors insisted he was fully aware of the scheme. In their closing statement, they said Trump “explicitly sanctioned tax fraud.” The Trump Organization lawyers disagreed, painting Weisselberg as an executive-gone-rogue. “Weisselberg did it for Weisselberg” became the lawyers’ mantra.

Trump, for his part, has dismissed the investigation as a politically-motivated “witch hunt” ahead of his 2024 presidential campaign—his third time vying for the presidency.

Rabbit hole: Trump’s other legal troubles

The brunt of this case fell on Weisselberg but Trump has several other investigations to worry about:

New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a $250 million civil lawsuit against Trump and his kids Eric, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Organization, alleging “staggering” fraud in the family real estate business, including inflating its net worth by billions to get better interest rates and insurance coverage. The case goes to trial in October 2023.

️ Just yesterday (Dec. 6), the Department of Justice subpoenaed election officials in Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania, asking for communications with or involving former President Donald Trump, his 2020 campaign aides, and a list of allies involved in his efforts. The federal agency is investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The justice department is conducting a criminal investigation of Trump for retaining sensitive and classified government records when he was leaving office in 2021. During an August raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Florida resort, officials uncovered more than 100 such documents.

️ The US House Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on Capitol Hill, has said it’ll make criminal referrals to the justice department to prosecute individuals involved in perpetuating the riot. Whether or not Trump is named in the list of wrongdoers remains to be seen.