On Tuesday, Donald Trump’s real estate company was found guilty of a 15-year-long scheme to cheat the government out of taxes. This is just one more legal problem for the former president as he runs for office again in 2024.
The Trump Organization, which runs hotels, golf courses, and other types of real estate all over the world, was found to have paid top executives’ personal expenses, including those of former CFO Allen Weisselberg, and given them bonus checks as if they were independent contractors.
The company will have to pay fines of up to $1.6 million because it was found guilty of all charges, which include planning to cheat the government out of taxes, conspiracy, and making up business records. In this case, Trump was not charged.
Justice Juan Merchan, who ran the trial in New York state court, set Jan. 13 as the date for the sentence.
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Even though the fine shouldn’t be too big for a company as big as the Trump Organization, the conviction could make it harder for the company to do business.
Weisselberg, who is 75 years old, was the main witness for the government as part of a plea deal that calls for a five-month jail sentence.
Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the case to court in Manhattan, said the verdict was “very fair.”
“The former president’s companies have now been found guilty of crimes,” said Bragg in the New York courthouse after the verdict. He was talking about the Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation, which are both parts of the Trump Organization.
Bragg did not answer when asked if he was sorry he did not charge Trump in the case.
He has said that the investigation of Trump by the office is still going on.
APPEAL
Alan Futerfas, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, said that the company would file an appeal and that the law about criminal responsibility for corporations was not clear.
After the verdict, he told reporters, “It was the most important part of the case.”
Over two days, the jury talked for about 12 hours.
The case focused on claims that the company paid for personal expenses like free rent and car leases for executives like Weisselberg without reporting the income and gave them bonuses as non-employee compensation from other Trump entities like the Mar-a-Lago Club without taking taxes out.
During the four-week trial, witnesses said that Trump signed the bonus checks every year, paid private school tuition for Weisselberg’s grandchildren, signed the lease for his luxury apartment in Manhattan, and agreed to take money out of another executive’s salary.
“The whole story that Donald Trump was blissfully ignorant is just not true,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the jury in his closing argument on Friday.
He said that the “smorgasbord of benefits” was meant to keep “happy and loyal” executives in their jobs.
Trump, a Republican, said in a statement that he was “disappointed” by the verdict but that the case was a “Manhattan witch hunt.” He announced his third run for the presidency on November 15. Both Cyrus Vance, who was in charge before Bragg, and Bragg are Democrats.
SEPARATE LAWSUIT
Letitia James, the attorney general of New York State, has also filed a fraud suit against the Trump Organization.
The U.S. Department of Justice is looking into how Trump handled sensitive government documents after he left office in January 2021 and his attempts to overturn the election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden in November 2020.
According to the Trump Organization’s lawyers, Weisselberg engaged in the scheme to benefit himself, not the company.They tried to make him look like a bad worker. Weisselberg is on paid leave right now, and he told the court that he hopes to get another $500,000 bonus in January.
On November 19, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that his family “gains nothing financially from the actions of the executive.”
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Weisselberg pleaded guilty in August to hiding $1.76 million in income from the IRS. He said that even though Trump signed some of the checks in question, he did not work with Trump to do this.
He said that instead of raising his salary, the company saved money by paying for his rent, utilities, Mercedes-Benz car leases for him and his wife, and other personal expenses. This is because a salary increase would have had to take into account taxes.
He said that when Trump’s two sons took over the business in 2017, they gave him a raise because they knew about his plan to avoid paying taxes.
By that time, Trump was president, and the company knew it would be under more scrutiny.
“We were cleaning up the company as a whole to make sure that everything was done right now that Mr. Trump is president,” Weisselberg said in court.
