It took the jury just over ten hours to find guilt on the 17 charges filed.
Companies cannot go to jail. It is one of the advantages of American capitalism, which leaves ample margins to foster the entrepreneurial spirit. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg could have filed tax fraud charges against Donald Trump, his sons and other top executives, but chose instead to focus on the company the tycoon founded and another of his companies in charge of paying payrolls. That’s why yesterday, when a jury returned a resounding guilty verdict, the tycoon only hurt his wallet and his pride.
The jury was in no doubt that the Trump Organization has been defrauding the New York government for 15 years, initiating a “culture of fraud and deceit.” It took the twelve members just over ten hours to reach a resounding guilty verdict on the 17 criminal charges filed against both companies, the Trump Organization and the Trump Payroll Corporation, the subsidiary created to pay workers.
One of them was sitting on the couch. Allen Weisselberg, 75, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, negotiated a five-month reduced sentence in exchange for very limited cooperation with the prosecution and always without testifying against Donald Trump, who has always been one of his most loyal associates. one of his children. “It was my own personal greed that led to this case,” he said in a cracking voice on the couch, in what many understood as perjury. Weisselberg began working at the organization with the former president’s father, Fred Trump. He handled the personal affairs of the entire family, saw the birth and growth of Ivanka, Donald Trump Jr. and Erick Trump, who considered him “the only person they could trust.” He served as company treasurer, vice president of Trump Hotels & Casinos, and even a judge on the reality show that made the tycoon famous, “The Apprentice.” In his statement, he was as restrictive as possible to avoid rotting in prison until the end of his days, but his boss was not so benevolent.
The defense strategy was to view him as “a simple worker” who manipulated finances for his own benefit to save money on taxes. He did it not only to save what he had to pay back too much — the $344.745 million in untaxed expenses, which has become $2 million including penalty and interest — but also to save the company large sums from plaintiffs. The financial strategy was to convert part of the executives’ salaries into tax-free expenses. In other words, they received a large part of their salary in spices. It wasn’t just about having an executive car, but several luxury cars, apartments in Manhattan, and even his grandchildren’s school and his children’s college paid for directly by Trump’s companies.
“After many years reviewing millions of pages of documents against the record number of murders and other violent crimes that occurred in New York City, the administration succeeded in getting an employee to plead guilty in order to receive a greatly reduced sentence,” Trump despised. . in a statement last night.
The employee in question has continued to collect his $640,000 a year salary even after taking leave. In return, he has repeated ad nauseam that neither Trump nor his children knew about the financial tricks he used to save the company money, something the jury did not buy. “Nothing has happened in the Trump Organization without Donald Trump knowing about it and signing it,” Trump lawyer Michael Cohen said under oath before Congress.
The Trump Organization will pay only a $1.6 million fine, pocket change for a company that makes hundreds of millions a year, but it will be forever scarred by fraud and will not be able to get financial loans at the favorable interest rates it enjoyed. among other consequences. In addition, the ruling will bolster the case of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is conducting a civil investigation and seeking to force the company out of New York. A city that the former president considers hostile in any case. “It’s very hard to be Trump in New York,” he lamented last night.
Source: La Verdad
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