New York Times
Donald J. Trump’s family real estate business was convicted on Tuesday of tax fraud and other financial crimes, a remarkable rebuke of the former president’s company and what prosecutors described as its “culture of fraud and deception.”
The conviction on all 17 counts, after more than a day of jury deliberations in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, resulted from a long-running scheme in which the Trump Organization doled out off-the-books luxury perks to some executives: They received fancy apartments, leased Mercedes-Benzes, even private school tuition for relatives, none of which they paid taxes on.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which led the case against two Trump Organization entities, had previously extracted a guilty plea from the architect of the scheme, Allen H. Weisselberg, the company’s long-serving chief financial officer. Mr. Weisselberg, one of the former president’s most loyal lieutenants, testified as the prosecution’s star witness, but never implicated Mr. Trump.
While prosecutors stopped short of indicting the former president, they invoked his name throughout the monthlong trial, telling jurors that he personally paid for some of the perks and even approved a crucial aspect of the scheme. The prosecution also sounded a drumbeat of damning evidence that spotlighted his company’s freewheeling culture, revealing that pervasive illegality unfolded under Mr. Trump’s nose for years.
The company’s conviction — coupled with the prosecution’s explosive claim at trial that Mr. Trump was “explicitly sanctioning tax fraud” — could now reverberate through the 2024 presidential race, providing early fodder for opponents and their attack ads.
It also might lay the groundwork for the district attorney’s office to intensify its wider criminal investigation into Mr. Trump’s business practices — and hush money paid to a porn star who said she had an affair with him — an inquiry that gained momentum in recent months, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The conviction on charges of tax fraud, a scheme to defraud, conspiracy and falsifying business records is hardly a death sentence for the Trump Organization. The maximum penalty it faces is $1.62 million, a rounding error for Mr. Trump, who typically notched hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue during his presidency.
Yet the verdict represents a highly public reckoning for the Trump Organization, forever branding it as a felonious enterprise. A company that served as a launching pad for the former president’s tabloid celebrity, his star turn on “The Apprentice” and ultimately his political career, might now be best known for its conviction, rather than the hotels and golf clubs that Mr. Trump spent a generation building.
The former president has blamed it all on a politically motivated witch hunt. But while his attacks on prosecutors might appeal to his most loyal voters, lenders and the broader business world might now shun his company.
In a statement after the verdict, the company took aim at Mr. Weisselberg, noting that he “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 said in the statement.
Donald J. Trump’s family real estate business was convicted on Tuesday of tax fraud and other financial crimes, a remarkable rebuke of the former president’s company and what prosecutors described as its “culture of fraud and deception.”
The conviction on all 17 counts, after more than a day of jury deliberations in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, resulted from a long-running scheme in which the Trump Organization doled out off-the-books luxury perks to some executives: They received fancy apartments, leased Mercedes-Benzes, even private school tuition for relatives, none of which they paid taxes on.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which led the case against two Trump Organization entities, had previously extracted a guilty plea from the architect of the scheme, Allen H. Weisselberg, the company’s long-serving chief financial officer. Mr. Weisselberg, one of the former president’s most loyal lieutenants, testified as the prosecution’s star witness, but never implicated Mr. Trump.
While prosecutors stopped short of indicting the former president, they invoked his name throughout the monthlong trial, telling jurors that he personally paid for some of the perks and even approved a crucial aspect of the scheme. The prosecution also sounded a drumbeat of damning evidence that spotlighted his company’s freewheeling culture, revealing that pervasive illegality unfolded under Mr. Trump’s nose for years.
The company’s conviction — coupled with the prosecution’s explosive claim at trial that Mr. Trump was “explicitly sanctioning tax fraud” — could now reverberate through the 2024 presidential race, providing early fodder for opponents and their attack ads.
It also might lay the groundwork for the district attorney’s office to intensify its wider criminal investigation into Mr. Trump’s business practices — and hush money paid to a porn star who said she had an affair with him — an inquiry that gained momentum in recent months, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The conviction on charges of tax fraud, a scheme to defraud, conspiracy and falsifying business records is hardly a death sentence for the Trump Organization. The maximum penalty it faces is $1.62 million, a rounding error for Mr. Trump, who typically notched hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue during his presidency.
Yet the verdict represents a highly public reckoning for the Trump Organization, forever branding it as a felonious enterprise. A company that served as a launching pad for the former president’s tabloid celebrity, his star turn on “The Apprentice” and ultimately his political career, might now be best known for its conviction, rather than the hotels and golf clubs that Mr. Trump spent a generation building.
The former president has blamed it all on a politically motivated witch hunt. But while his attacks on prosecutors might appeal to his most loyal voters, lenders and the broader business world might now shun his company.
In a statement after the verdict, the company took aim at Mr. Weisselberg, noting that he “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 said in the statement.
19 comments:
"Down goes Trump! Down goes Trump!!"
Conman will never get the Republican Party 2024 nomination now. His company was a criminal enterprise. Lock him up!
Fucka needs to be jailed.
yo.
I knew he was secretly a demorat.
Mayra's coming back for 2024 -
My Mexican 🌮🌯 home 🏠 boy blogger is doing such a good job keeping his guard up in this fight. This is starting ⭐✨ off 📴 to be a good fight. This time we know hater Montoya is out there.
No retreat from us, ese!
You may have known he was a Demorat but you sure enjoyed KISSING his orange ass when he called himself a Republican. HAHAHA no mas se les quita lo PENDEJOS a ustedes!!!!
Trump keeps fucking himself. Every day a new bummer for Cheeto.
lock him up!!!
That's nothing, Cameron County and the city of Brownsville should be guilty for thousands of crimes of stupidity.
Trump claims and hides behind "Witch Hunts." He is slow but not stupid to
not realize whether his company was involved in all they were convicted for
and not pretend otherwise. If so, he is really out of space and had no business pretending to be our 45th Pres. Now he wants to be 47 and we still have some people that will not study or bother to research the bad he did
for our country.
Yes, there were some Democrats that went after him from day one, but evidence shows that many points were false, but he continue to make a fool out of himself by stating that we need to get rid of certain portions of our Constitution. What a laugh, but so bad that we all to actually cry instead of laugh. Do not let this idiot be nominated for the Republican candidate!
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Chief Chapo Sauceda should be the one who should get arrested, for the charge of FRAUD, since he is a fraud.
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1.6 million for a corporation? It shows the violations were nothing in the grand scheme of things. Look into the Clinton Global Initiative if you really want some fraud.
But of course nobody in the corporate media will.
WHEN WHEN WHEN will we see him in JAIL??
Los rinches won't arrest him, porque son puros vendidos y gringo.
The sole name Trump is nothing more than corruption and fraud.
"Hang Donald Trump." Fugitively speaking. Bueno El Safado se cuelga solo. Fool needs no help.
Review committee gives update: Considers charter changes related to BPUB
update? Que ratas se fueron? NINGUNA???? PORQUE? Y EL D.A. FBI, RANGERS, NADA NADA NADA.
NO PUBLICATION BEFORE VOTING? WHY? ESCONDIERON TODO!!!
if the Democrats get there wish he will be locked up with them, there is not one innocent politician especially in Browntown.....
Sent him to a federal prison in texas so the lapdog can sent him lunch for the next 20 years.
Mayra will be back in 2024?? No creo. Si le va muy bien en Burgos selling Hamburgos, Maybe she wants to go para Memphis a las piscas de algodon. Que vieja tan mentirosa. Not to worry, no va poder cruzar el puente.JAJAJA!!!
He's coming to brownsville and buy thousands of acres of stolen lands and call it Mar Sucio...
a city hall friend told me
Joe and Hunter Biden are a bunch of crooks. They need to be incarcerated. No one should be above the law!
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