NEW YORK (National Times) – Donald Trump on Friday will learn how the company that bears the former U.S. president\u2019s name will be punished after being found guilty of scheming to defraud tax authorities for 15 years.<\/p>\n
A New York state judge will impose the sentence after jurors in Manhattan found two Trump Organization affiliates guilty of 17 criminal charges last month.<\/p>\n
The sentencing comes three days after Justice Juan Merchan of the Manhattan criminal court ordered Allen Weisselberg, who worked for Trump\u2019s family for a half-century and was the company\u2019s former chief financial officer, to jail for five months after he testified as the prosecution\u2019s star witness.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s company faces only a maximum $1.6 million penalty but has said it plans to appeal. No one else was charged or faces jail time in the case.<\/p>\n
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg\u2019s office, which brought the case, is still conducting a criminal probe into Trump\u2019s business practices.<\/p>\n
Bill Black, a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law specializing in white-collar crime, called the expected penalty a \u201crounding error\u201d that offers \u201czero deterrence\u201d to others, including Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a farce,\u201d he said. \u201cNo one will stop committing these kinds of crimes because of this sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n
The case has long been a thorn in the side of the Republican former president, who calls it part of a witch hunt by Democrats who dislike him and his politics.<\/p>\n
Trump also faces a $250 million civil lawsuit by state Attorney General Letitia James accusing him and his adult children Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump of inflating his net worth and the value of his company\u2019s assets to save money on loans and insurance.<\/p>\n
Bragg and James are Democrats, as is Bragg\u2019s predecessor Cyrus Vance, who brought the criminal case. Trump is seeking the presidency in 2024, after losing his re-election bid in 2020.<\/p>\n
At a four-week trial, prosecutors offered evidence that Trump\u2019s company covered personal expenses such as rent and car leases for executives without reporting them as income, and pretended that Christmas bonuses were non-employee compensation.<\/p>\n
Trump himself signed bonus checks, prosecutors said, as well as the lease on Weisselberg\u2019s luxury Manhattan apartment and private school tuition for the CFO\u2019s grandchildren.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole narrative that Donald Trump was blissfully ignorant is just not real,\u201d Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass told jurors in his closing argument.<\/p>\n
Weisselberg\u2019s testimony helped convict the company, though he said Trump was not part of the fraud scheme. He also refused to help Bragg in his broader investigation into Trump.<\/p>\n
The Trump Organization had put Weisselberg on paid leave until they severed ties this week. His lawyer said the split, announced on Tuesday, was amicable.<\/p>\n
Weisselberg, 75, is serving his sentence in New York City\u2019s notorious Rikers Island jail.<\/p>\n
State law limits the penalties that Justice Merchan can impose on Trump\u2019s company. A corporation can be fined up to $250,000 for each tax-related count and $10,000 for each non-tax count.<\/p>\n
Trump faces several other legal woes, including probes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, his retention of classified documents after leaving the White House, and efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK (National Times) – Donald Trump on Friday will learn how the company that bears the former U.S. president\u2019s name will be punished after being found guilty of scheming to defraud tax authorities for 15 years. A New York state judge will impose the sentence after jurors in Manhattan found two Trump Organization affiliates […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n