17 counts of criminal tax fraud
After deliberating for less than 24 hours a New York jury came back with the guilty verdict on Tuesday afternoon. The announcement was made in court around 3pm Wednesday.
The trial which was related to two Trump Organization firms, both the Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation, started with an indictment in July (2022). Allen Weisselberg, long standing Trump finance chief, was also accused of crimes for various tax schemes, including reducing payroll liabilities from top executive salaries via various tricks, as well as luxury freebies and untaxed bonus payments. The amounts in total were in the millions of dollars.
Testimony from Weisselberg, after he pleaded guilty in August, appears to have been key. The cooperation deal he made with the prosecution is likely to get him a relatively light 5-month sentence, pending.
Former president Trump did not face charges directly in the case, but there remains an ongoing investigation into the matter.
This news comes even as a slew of cases, including the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation, and also various possible crimes stemming from his attempts to overturn the election that he lost in 2020 and building steam.
For many observers it only seems odd that convictions, such as the one that came down today in this case, were so long in coming. Once the Trump “empire” started to unravel after January 6th 2021, it was only a matter of time, it would seem, before many, such as former Trump attorney Michael Cohen and now Allen Weisselberg would choose to testify and save themselves from taking the full weight of charges by shielding their former boss.
Another upcoming trial, currently scheduled to begin in October of 2023, involves charges alleging that the Trump Org and Trump and three children named directly, perpetrated a related multi-year fraud spree, using manipulated property values and also similar techniques to those for which the companies were found guilty today.
Ultimately this story, while perhaps a final note in this specific case and its charges, is likely the only beginning of a coming avalanche of verdicts and decisions related to the former president’s now crumbling empire and his actions to attempt to regain presidential power.
Please help keep us publishing the content you love
Lynxotic may receive a small commission based on any purchases made by following links from this page
