Jury Finds Trump Org Guilty on All 17 Counts in Tax Fraud Case
Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images.
After a month-long trial and deliberating for more than a day, a jury found the Trump Organization and a subsidiary entity guilty of all 17 counts charged against them by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
The charges against the family real estate empire led by former President Donald Trump included charges for tax fraud, a scheme to defraud, conspiracy, and falsifying business records, according to The New York Times, and centered around an over 15-year effort by the company to provide top executives with valuable benefits — off the books and without the IRS taking its cut — including “fancy apartments, leased Mercedes-Benzes, even private school tuition for relatives.”
Prosecutors started sniffing around after Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen testified before Congress in 2019, alleging that the company’s modus operandi was to artificially inflate assets when they were being used to secure loans or other valuations where it was advantageous, and to conceal or downplay assets where taxes were being assessed on them.
The specific investigation leading to the trial that culminated this month was initiated by former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance (D), and taken over by his successor, Alvin Bragg (D), leading to indictments for Trump Org., its subsidiary Trump Payroll Corp., and former Trump Org. CFO Allen Weisselberg, who pled guilty in August and agreed to testify against the company.
According to a press release by Bragg’s office, the full list of charges included one count of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree, a class E felony, plus 16 counts against Trump Org. and Trump Payroll Corp.:
Scheme to Defraud in the First Degree, a class E felony, one count
Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree, a class E felony, one count
Criminal Tax Fraud in Third Degree, a class D felony, two counts
Criminal Tax Fraud in the Fourth Degree, a class E felony, one count
Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree, a class E felony, three counts
“This was a case about greed and cheating. In Manhattan, no corporation is above the law,” said Bragg in a statement. “For 13 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.
Weisselberg’s testimony did not implicate Trump, and thus far, neither the former president nor his adult children who have had roles in the business have been charged, but the prosecutors’ arguments repeatedly mentioned Trump as a key player in the scheme.
As reported by CNN:
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the jury in closing arguments that Trump “explicitly sanctioned” tax fraud and urged them to reject the defense’s argument that former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg was a rogue employee motivated by his own personal greed.
“This whole narrative that Donald Trump is blissfully ignorant is just not true,” Steinglass said.
The jury heard that Trump agreed on a whim to pay the private school tuition for his Weisselberg’s grandchildren and signed a lease for a Manhattan apartment to shorten the executive’s commute. Trump personally signed his employees’ bonus checks at Christmas time and he initialed a memo reducing the salary of another top executives, which prosecutors said suggested he knew all along about the fraudulent scheme.
The maximum penalty Trump Org. faces for these guilty verdicts is a total of $1.62 million, which the Times characterized as “a rounding error for Mr. Trump,” but the impacts are likely to be beyond the mere dollars and cents, including “providing early fodder for opponents and their attack ads” targeting Trump’s 2024 presidential ambitions, opening the door for the Manhattan DA “to intensify its wider criminal investigation into Mr. Trump’s business practices” (including the hush money allegedly paid to Stormy Daniels), and by serving as a “a highly public reckoning for the Trump Organization, forever branding it as a felonious enterprise,” making potential business partners and lenders more reluctant to work with the company.
Sentencing regarding the companies is currently scheduled for Jan. 13, 2023, and Weisselberg’s sentencing will also be determined in the coming weeks.
This is a breaking story and has been updated with additional information.
