(New York) Just type Allen Weisselberg’s name into the New York City Department of Corrections search engine to locate him in the vast and fearsome Rikers Island prison complex.
The former financial director of the Trump Organization is incarcerated in the West Facility, a prison reserved for people sentenced to sentences of less than 12 months. This is the safest place in the complex. In the cafeteria, inmates have access to a kettle, a container considered a potential weapon in other Rikers Island prisons because of the boiling water it can contain.
Like all other inmates, the 76-year-old retiree must work in the kitchen, bakery or other department of the prison, where he is serving a five-month sentence for perjury.
But nothing stops him from leaving the place to testify in the trial of his former boss in Manhattan. Why then did the prosecution not call him to the stand?
Jurors in Donald Trump’s trial must ask themselves that question as they approach their deliberations, which could begin in the middle of the week. And the judge in charge of the trial, Juan Merchan, may have to provide them with an answer when he gives them his instructions.
What was his role?
Allen Weisselberg is certainly not the only missing witness from this trial, as we will see later. But he plays a central role in this story. A role as important, if not more so, than that of Stormy Daniels, whose testimony captivated the attention of Americans during the fourth week of the trial.
According to Michael Cohen’s testimony, Allen Weisselberg first took part in a discussion about paying Stormy Daniels to silence her before the 2016 presidential election over her allegations of a sexual relationship with Donald Trump. He allegedly offered to offer a subscription to one of his boss’s golf clubs to someone who would advance the $130,000 requested by the pornographic film actress or to credit a family wishing to organize a bar mitzvah in the one of the properties of the Trump Organization.
On the stand, Michael Cohen recalled rejecting these schemes that would have directly linked the Trump Organization to the $130,000 payment. He added that he had asked Allen Weisselberg to advance the sum of money himself. The father-to-son Trump accountant reportedly replied that he could not afford it because of the costs of his grandchildren’s private education and summer camps.
“I finally said, ‘Okay, I’ll pay,’” Michael Cohen testified.
In another part of his testimony, Michael Cohen said that Allen Weisselberg was present during a crucial meeting at Trump Tower in mid-January 2017. According to him, it was there that Donald Trump approved the plan of his company’s financial director seeking to pass off the reimbursement of $130,000 paid by his personal lawyer to Stormy Daniels as legal fees.
A witness too crazy for the prosecution and the defense?
The prosecution hopes that Michael Cohen’s testimony, supported by handwritten notes from Allen Weisselberg and checks signed by Donald Trump, will be enough to prove beyond a doubt that the former president is guilty of falsifying or causing to be falsified documents commercial activities in order to cover up its violation of a New York election law.
The defense hopes to have succeeded in undermining Michael Cohen’s credibility during the first two days of a cross-examination which is due to end this Monday. Hence the interest that several jurors undoubtedly share in hearing the version of this Allen Weisselberg about whom they heard so much during the trial.
However, Allen Weisselberg is a problematic witness for both parties. The prosecution would not be sure of getting the truth by calling him to the stand. After all, the former Trump Organization CFO pleaded guilty last March to a perjury charge related to his testimony at Donald Trump’s fraud trial in New York. This was his second guilty plea, the first stemming from the tax fraud trial against him and the Trump Organization in 2022.
PHOTO CURTIS MEANS, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Allen Weisselberg, during his conviction for perjury, April 10
At that trial, Allen Weisselberg testified for the prosecution, contributing to the guilty verdict against the Trump Organization. But he refused to blame Donald Trump himself.
Around the same time, Allen Weisselberg received a $2 million severance package from the Trump Organization, of which he still has $750,000 left to collect. Amount he could be deprived of if he testified against Donald Trump.
However, the defense does not intend to call Allen Weisselberg to the stand to contradict Michael Cohen’s version. She may fear the possibility that he will tell bits of the truth, if not the whole truth, in hopes of avoiding being charged and convicted again for perjury, a crime that carries a maximum prison sentence of seven years in New York.
The prosecution and defense may be making the same calculation regarding another missing witness: Keith Schiller. Notably, Donald Trump’s former bodyguard can reveal a lot about what happened on the day in 2006 when Stormy Daniels met the future president at a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
Donald Trump denies having had a sexual relationship with Stormy Daniels, just as he denies having given the green light to the scheme to hide the $130,000 that was paid to him.
He has already said he is ready to testify at his trial. However, unless there is a monumental surprise, he will do nothing. When he addresses the jurors before their deliberations, Judge Merchan will tell them that they cannot hold this decision against the defendant.
But he could criticize the prosecution for refusing to call Allen Weisselberg to the stand.