The former president’s company had been accused of
providing off-the-book benefits to executives. The testimony of its former
chief financial officer proved crucial to the case.
Updated
Dec. 6,
2022, 4:56 p.m. ET15 minutes ago
15 minutes
ago
Jonah E.
Bromwich, Ben Protess, William K. Rashbaum and Lola Fadulu
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/06/nyregion/trump-organization-trial-verdict
The guilty verdict is a stern rebuke for a company
that fostered crime.
The family business that nurtured Donald J. Trump’s
fame has been branded a felonious enterprise.
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
broader 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.
For now,
the verdict against Mr. Trump’s company provides a win for the new district
attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, a Democrat who came under fire early this year when
he declined to seek an indictment of Mr. Trump in the broader investigation.
The conviction of the company marks the height of Mr. Bragg’s young tenure.
“The former
president’s companies now stand convicted of crimes,” Mr. Bragg said outside
the courtroom after the verdict was delivered. “That is consequential. It
underscores that in Manhattan we have one standard of justice for all.”
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.
Alan
Futerfas, one of the company’s lawyers, said the Trump Organization would
appeal the verdict. Another company lawyer, Susan Necheles, called the case
“unprecedented and legally incorrect,” adding that, “We disagree with the
jury’s verdict.”
The jurors
delivered their decision after spending about 10 hours deliberating, at times
appearing to methodically work through charges as they returned to the
courtroom on several occasions to request information. But when their
deliberations had concluded, the jurors seemed eager to report. They buzzed the
courtroom four times to notify the judge that it was time to be heard.
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