Donald Trump

Donald Trump‘s real estate company was convicted on Tuesday of carrying out a 15-year-long criminal scheme to defraud tax authorities

A jury in Manhattan has found The Trump Organization guilty of paying personal expenses for top executives including former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, and issuing bonus checks to them as if they were independent contractors.

The company faces up to $1.6 million in fines after being convicted on all charges, including scheming to defraud tax authorities, conspiracy, and falsifying business records. Trump was not charged in the case.
A sentencing date has been set for January 13, 2023.

A lawyer for the Trump Organization said the company would appeal and that the criminal law governing corporate liability was vague.

The Trump Organization is still facing a fraud lawsuit brought by New York state Attorney General Letitia James.

And Trump himself is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice over his handling of sensitive government documents after he left office in January 2021 and attempts to overturn the November 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Letitia James, Donald Trump

New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced Wednesday that she is suing former President Donald Trump and three of his children for fraud stemming from her three-year civil investigation into the Trump Organization’s business dealings.

The civil lawsuit seeks at least $250 million in damages.

It also seeks to permanently bar Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Ivanka Trump from serving as an officer of a company in New York, and permanently prohibit the Trump companies named in the suit from doing business in New York state.

James said she has asked federal prosecutors in Manhattan and the IRS to investigate Trump for possible federal crimes. She said that evidence obtained during her three-year civil probe of Trump indicated possible crimes of bank fraud and making false statements to financial institutions.

James said Trump massively overstated the values of his assets in statements to banks, insurance companies and the IRS to obtain more favorable loan and insurance terms for his company, as well as to lower its tax obligations.

The lawsuit alleges that from 2011 to 2021, Donald Trump and the Trump Organization knowingly and intentionally created more than 200 false and misleading valuations of assets on his annual Statements of Financial Condition to defraud financial institutions.

James said that Trump had falsely claimed that his apartment in Manhattan was more than triple its actual size as part of the alleged fraud.

And the suit says Trump valued his Mar-a-Lago club property in Palm Beach, Florida, on the false premise that it sat on unrestricted property and could be developed for residential use, even though he allegedly knew that property was subject to a variety of tight restrictions.

James said that in reality, Mar-a-Lago generated less than $25 million in annual revenue and should have been valued at about $75 million, not the $739 million that was claimed.

In addition to the Trumps, the defendants in the suit include Allen Weisselberg, who acted for years as chief financial officer of the Trump Organization.

Both Weisselberg and the Trump Organization were criminally charged last year by the Manhattan district attorney’s office for an alleged scheme to avoid paying taxes on portions of the compensation given to company executives, among them Weisselberg.

Other defendants in the suit include Weisselberg’s lieutenant, Jeffrey McConney, as well as several Trump companies, among them ones that own properties in Manhattan, Westchester County, New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.

The seven-count suit alleges persistent and repeated fraud; falsifying business records; conspiracy to falsify business records; issuing false financial statements; conspiracy to falsify false financial statements; insurance fraud; and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud.

Trump Organization

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Jr. announced the deal Thursday, saying Weisselberg as the Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organization and an employee of the Trump Corporation devised and operated a 15-year scheme to defraud federal, New York State, and New York City tax authorities, evading payment of taxes due on $1.76 million in unreported income.

Weisselberg faces a sentence of five months in jail to be served on Rikers Island and five years’ probation contingent on him testifying in the upcoming criminal trial of the Trump Organization.

Jury selection in the Trump Organization trial is scheduled to begin October 24th.

Prior to sentencing, Weisselberg must also make full repayment of taxes, penalties and interest due to the New York City and New York State tax authorities totaling $1,994,321.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office said the investigation concerning former President Donald Trump and the Trump Organization is ongoing.

Letitia James, Donald Trump

New York Attorney General Letitia James has issued subpoenas to Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., as part of an ongoing fraud inquiry examining the operations of former President Donald Trump‘s namesake real estate business.

USA Today reports the action was disclosed in court documents filed Monday in connection with the civil investigation focusing on whether the Trump Organization claimed false property valuations in its dealings with lenders and taxing authorities.

A lawyer for the Trump children declined comment Monday.

The move comes as the attorney general also is seeking the testimony of the former president.

The civil investigation has been running parallel to a criminal inquiry led by both James and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

So far, the joint investigation has resulted in criminal tax evasion charges against Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s longtime chief financial officer.

Last year, state prosecutors alleged that the Trump Organization and Weisselberg participated in an “off the books” compensation operation that funded luxury car leases, family members’ tuition payments and apartment rent starting in 2005 and running through this year.

James first launched her investigation after former Trump attorney Michael Cohen told federal lawmakers in 2019 that Donald Trump regularly inflated the value of his properties and his net worth to get better insurance and loan rates.

In May, the attorney general announced that her office was joining forces with the Manhattan district attorney.