Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, has pleaded guilty to lying under oath during testimony in a civil fraud case brought against former President Trump by New York Attorney General Letitia James. On Wednesday, he was sentenced to five months in prison.
Weisselberg, 76, pleaded guilty on March 4 to two counts of perjury. He admitted that he lied in depositions in July 2020 and May 2023, and under oath three times on the witness stand at a trial last October, during which time he lied at President Trump’s Manhattan penthouse. He testified that he had little knowledge of how the financial statements came to be valued. Almost 3 times the actual size.
However, to avoid violating his probation in another tax case, Weisselberg agreed to plead only to charges related to the 2020 affidavit.
Weisselberg, wearing a black windbreaker and surgical face mask, refused to address the court during the brief sentencing, which lasted less than five minutes. He was quickly escorted out of the courtroom in handcuffs after the proceedings to serve his sentence, the Associated Press reported.
The civil fraud trial, ruled by Judge Arthur Engoron, alleges that President Trump and some of his top executives conspired to defraud banks, insurance companies and others by lying about their assets on financial statements used to secure deals and loans. It ended with a judgment. The judge fined Trump $455 million and ordered Weisselberg to pay $1 million. Both are fascinating.
Former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg pleads guilty in Manhattan court
Allen Weisselberg (right) stands behind then-President-elect Donald Trump during a press conference in the lobby of Trump Tower on January 11, 2017 in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Engoron said in his ruling that he found Weisselberg’s testimony to be “deliberately evasive” and “highly unreliable.”
This is Weisselberg’s second time in prison. The Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer served 100 days in prison last year for evading taxes on $1.7 million in company benefits, including a rent-free apartment in Manhattan and luxury cars. He will now once again trade his life as a retiree in Florida for time at New York City’s infamous Rikers Island prison.
Mr. Trump’s family employed Mr. Weisselberg for nearly 50 years, then gave him a $2 million severance package when taxes forced him to retire. The company continues to pay his legal fees.
Allen Weisselberg, a longtime executive in former President Trump’s real estate empire, will appear in a New York courtroom on Wednesday, April 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg pleads guilty to tax crimes and sentenced to five months in prison
Mr. Weisselberg has already testified twice at Mr. Trump’s trial. His plea agreement does not require him to testify in Trump’s hush-money criminal trial, which is scheduled to begin with jury selection on Monday. Prosecutors cited Weisselberg’s age and willingness to admit wrongdoing in agreeing to a five-month sentence. In New York state, perjury is a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison. Prosecutors have promised not to charge Mr. Weisselberg with other crimes he may have committed in connection with his employment with the Trump Organization.
Trump’s lawyers took issue with Weisselberg’s perjury charges, saying that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office was “turning a blind eye” to the perjury charges against former Trump president Michael Cohen and “suspecting an innocent man in his late 70s. They accused the country of deploying “unethical and strong-arm tactics against the United States.” The lawyer is currently a key prosecution witness in the case against Trump over hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Allen Weisselberg, a longtime executive in former President Trump’s real estate empire, will arrive in New York for sentencing on Wednesday, April 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office and Mr. Weisselberg’s attorney, Seth Rosenberg, declined to address the court, according to the Associated Press.
Trump valued the penthouse as if it were 30,000 square feet in financial statements from at least 2012 to 2016. A former real estate executive for President Trump testified that Weisselberg provided the numbers. When asked in 2012 how big the apartment was, Mr. Weisselberg replied, “It’s pretty big. I think it’s about 30,000 square feet,” according to a former executive.
But state attorneys pointed out that Weisselberg received an email earlier that year with a 1994 document setting the size of Trump’s apartment at 10,996 square feet. Weisselberg testified that she remembered the email, but not the attachment, and that she “didn’t walk around to get an idea of the size” of the apartment.
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After Forbes published an article in 2017 disputing the size of President Trump’s penthouse, the estimated value of the penthouse on financial statements was lowered from $327 million to about $117 million.
As Weisselberg was testifying last October, Forbes published an article with the headline, “Trump’s longtime CFO lied under oath about Trump Tower penthouse.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
