The Trump Organization was fined $1.6 million by a New York court this Friday after being found guilty of 17 counts of tax fraud, conspiracy and accounting fraud. It was the maximum sentence he faced for a conspiracy he had used to evade taxes for years. The size of the fine is minimal for the business volume of the former US president’s corporate conglomerate, but it’s another blow to his standing as a candidate for the 2024 election.
Working with Allen Weisselberg, the group’s former chief financial officer, and after more than three years of investigation, the company was found guilty by a jury on December 6 of creating a system that uses black money to pay a portion of its executives’ pay or with undeclared benefits for a period of approximately 15 years. Weisselberg himself received from the company use of a free home in Manhattan, New York, luxury car rental, furniture, and even payment for his grandchildren’s private school without reporting to the Treasury Department.
The chief financial officer was sentenced earlier this week to five months in prison and five years’ probation. Weisselberg, 75, an associate of Donald Trump, pleaded guilty to 15 charges in August and received a reduced sentence after agreeing to cooperate with the investigation and testify against the former president’s business group, a conglomerate that owns hotels, Golf Courses and Other Real Estate operates real estate around the world.
The fines were imposed on two Trump Organization affiliates: Trump Corp, which was fined $810,000, and Trump Payroll Corp, which was fined $800,000. You must pay these amounts within two weeks. Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said the fines represent “a fraction of the income” of the Trump Organization and that the scheme is “far-reaching and brazen,” according to statements collected by the Associated Press. “All of these corrupt practices were part of the compensation package for Trump Organization executives, and it was certainly cheaper than paying higher salaries to those executives,” he added.
Trump has never been charged in this case, although prosecutors continue to investigate him. The Trump Organization is the subject of another civil lawsuit in which New York Attorney General Letitia James is accusing the former president and his group of companies of misleading the value of their assets. James is demanding that Trump and his three eldest sons be banned from running a New York-based company and intends to fine them at least $250 million in a trial tentatively scheduled for October. The former president has denounced without evidence that both investigations launched during his presidency are the result of political persecution against him.
Attorneys for the Trump Organization, Michael van der Veen and William Brennan, arrive at the New York Supreme Court this Friday. MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO (Getty Images via AFP)
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In a statement released after the verdict, the Trump Organization pledged that it did nothing wrong and that it will appeal the verdict. “New York has become the world capital of crime and murder; However, these politically motivated prosecutors will stop at nothing to snap up President Trump and continue the endless witch hunt that began the day he announced his presidency,” he said in a statement.
Trump also attributes the search of his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach, Fla., to partisan efforts by the federal government (particularly the Justice Department and the FBI) to seize thousands of documents, hundreds of them confidential, that he from the White House and illegally kept in his possession. Although they are two cases with numerous differences, the fact that it was discovered that the current President of the United States, Joe Biden, also had confidential documents from his time as Vice President in a private office and at home meant a ball oxygen for him.
At the same time, the fact that the Justice Department has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate Biden, just as it did against Trump, waters down allegations of discriminatory treatment. The former president is urging the FBI to search Biden’s homes, as they did at his mansion, but doesn’t mention that the FBI’s action in Mar-a-Lago came after Trump and his attorneys received a court order to release the papers had ignored. Instead, Biden’s attorneys notified the National Archives to take possession of the classified documents as soon as they discovered their existence.
Trump has announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election despite the backlog of pending court cases. Along with tax cases and secret papers, prosecutors are investigating his activities to undermine his 2020 election defeat and prevent the peaceful transfer of power to Biden.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol has recommended convicting Trump on the crimes of inciting insurrection, conspiracy to make false statements and defrauding the United States, and obstructing an official process of Congress to accuse the vote to certify President Biden’s triumph.
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