NY Jury Convicts Trump Organization For Tax Fraud

A jury in New York has convicted the Trump Organization of 17 counts of criminal tax fraud in a stinging rebuke of the former US president’s company, Lauren Gambino reported for The Guardian.

Photo Insert: The verdict represents a serious blow to Trump and his family who rose to fame as property moguls in New York but whose business practices have long been shadowed in secrecy.

Although Donald Trump was not personally on trial, prosecutors in the case brought by the Manhattan district attorney insisted he was fully aware of the long-running scheme in which they said executives were enriched by off-the-books perks to make up for lower salaries, reducing the company’s tax liabilities.

He was the elephant in the courtroom. “This was a case about greed and cheating,” Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, said in a statement celebrating the guilty verdict. “In Manhattan, no corporation is above the law.”

Earlier this year, the New York state attorney general, Letitia James, brought a sweeping civil suit against the former president, three of his adult children and the Trump Organization after a lengthy investigation by her office.

That suit, which is still pending, accuses Trump and his children of “staggering” fraud, alleging that they provided fraudulent statements to lenders and insurers that wildly inflated the value of his real estate holdings.

The 12-person jury in New York’s state court was sent out to deliberate on Monday morning after a six-week trial in which Trump Organization lawyers pinned blame for the fraud solely on the greed of longtime chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg.

Trump, who recently launched his 2024 campaign, assailed the investigation as part of a politically motivated “witch hunt.” In a statement on Tuesday, the Trump Organization denounced the verdict, which could carry a fine of up to $1.6 million, a relatively negligible sum for such a large company though it could affect future business dealings. A lawyer for the Trump Organization vowed to appeal.

“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 a statement. Weisselberg, the former close ally of Trump accepted a plea deal earlier this year admitting fraud in exchange for a five-month prison sentence.

Prosecutors laid out a case heavily reliant on Weisselberg’s testimony.

The verdict represents a serious blow to Trump and his family who rose to fame as property moguls in New York but whose business practices have long been shadowed in secrecy with confirmed reports of suppliers and contractors being stiffed and the use of lawsuits to delay payments and harass smaller companies whose fault was to deal with the grifting Trumps.

It is also the latest in a raft of legal troubles that surround Trump, including several investigations related to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election victory of Joe Biden and his apparent removal of sensitive White House documents to his Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago.

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