(New York) The family business of former US President Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, was sentenced in New York on Friday to a maximum fine of 1.6 million dollars for financial and tax fraud, a first in criminal law for the group, which awaits an even larger civil trial in 2023.
The group of the American billionaire, candidate for the nomination of the Republican Party for the presidential election of 2024, was tried for tax evasion and falsification of accounting declarations, in particular with the aim of hiding financial compensation from certain senior leaders from the tax services.
“Today, former President Trump’s businesses were fined the maximum fines allowed by law after historic convictions for a total of 17 misdemeanor crimes,” prosecutor Alvin Bragg said in a statement.
In concrete terms, the Trump Organization, which brings together golf clubs, luxury hotels and real estate properties, was accused of having granted financial or in-kind benefits to senior leaders, hiding them from the tax authorities to avoid paying taxes. , from 2005 to 2018.
Among them, a former historic financial director of the company, Allen Weisselberg, long very close to Donald Trump, who pleaded guilty to 15 charges and was sentenced Tuesday in the same case to five months in prison and more than two million dollar fine.
PHOTO DAVID DEE DELGADO, REUTERS
Allen Weisselberg
At the announcement of his sentence, Mr. Weisselberg, 75, who had started working in 1973 as an accountant for the father of Donald Trump, left handcuffed in the direction of the prison of Rikers Island to serve his sentence.
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He was accused of benefiting from the free rental of a luxury apartment in Manhattan, the provision of Mercedes cars or the payment of private school tuition for his grandchildren, approximately 1, $76 million in unreported income for years.
The Trump Organization had announced on December 6, when his guilt was announced, via one of his lawyers, Susan Necheles, that it would appeal, while seeking to blame Allen Weisselberg, assuring that he had himself “declared under oath [avoir] ‘betrayed’ trust [de] the society “.
Donald Trump, who has repeatedly denounced a “witch hunt”, was not personally targeted in this trial and he is not charged in any legal case at this stage, but he sees the files accumulating in court while that he addresses the 2024 Republican Party nomination race.
In the two most resounding cases, the attack by his supporters on the headquarters of Congress on January 6, 2021, and the attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, the special prosecutor Jack Smith must in particular look into possible lawsuits for the role of the former US president (2017-2021).
If he is not criminally charged, the billionaire must however appear in civil court in New York, with three of his children, Donald son, Eric and Ivanka, accused like them of fraudulent tax practices within the Trump Organization.
In this case, New York State Attorney General Letitia James accuses the Trump family of having “deliberately” manipulated the valuations of the group’s assets to obtain more advantageous loans from banks or reduce its taxes.
She is seeking $250 million in damages on behalf of the state, as well as bans from running companies for the ex-president and his relatives.