The entrance to Trump Tower on 5th Avenue is pictured in the Manhattan borough of New York City, May 19, 2021.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
The Trump Organization is set to be sentenced Friday morning for tax fraud and other crimes committed as part of a yearslong scheme to help some of its top executives avoid paying taxes on compensation.
Trump Payroll and the Trump Corporation, two subsidiaries of former President Donald Trump‘s business empire, are expected to be hit with fines of up to $1.6 million total at their sentencing hearing at 9:30 a.m. ET in Manhattan criminal court.
They were found guilty last month on 17 counts, including tax fraud, falsifying business records and conspiracy, as part of what prosecutors had called a “sweeping and audacious” scheme to compensate company executives “off the books.” The verdict by a New York City jury marked the first-ever criminal convictions of Trump’s companies.
One of those executives was former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud charges last summer and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors against his longtime employer.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office accused Weisselberg of receiving more than $1.7 million in unreported compensation over more than a decade. That compensation came in the form of rent payments on luxury apartments, home furnishings, Mercedes Benz cars for him and his wife, parking garage expenses and private-school tuition payments for his grandchildren, prosecutors alleged.
“This was a case about greed and cheating. In Manhattan, no corporation is above the law,” Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said after the guilty verdicts were announced.
Weisselberg, the 75-year-old former executive who has worked for Trump’s family since 1973, was sentenced Tuesday to five months in jail. Reuters reported that the Trump Organization is still paying Weisselberg’s lawyers, as well as a prison consultant to help prepare him for jail at New York’s notorious Rikers Island facility.
Trump himself was not charged in the case. He has decried the guilty verdict against his company as “a continuation of the Greatest Political Witch Hunt in the History of our Country.” The conviction came shortly after Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign.
Weisselberg attorney Nicholas Gravante said in a statement Tuesday that Weisselberg “regrets the harm his actions have caused to the Trump Organization and members of the Trump family.”
This is developing news. Please check back for updates.
