Top Trump Organization Executive Surrenders to Manhattan District Attorney to Be Charged
The chief financial officer of The Trump Organization surrendered to prosecutors Thursday morning as he and the company were expected to face tax-related charges.
Allen H. Weisselberg entered the Manhattan building where the criminal courts and office of the Manhattan district attorney are located at roughly 6:20 a.m., according to The New York Times.
Indictments against Weisselberg and the Trump Organization were expected to be unsealed Thursday afternoon.
Although the specifics of the indictments have not been released, The Times, in line with other media reports, suggested that Weisselberg is likely to face charges related to an alleged failure to pay taxes on benefits received from his employment.
Those benefits included apartments, cars and payment of private school tuition, The Times reported.
The Trump Organization has been investigated by the Manhattan DA and New York state attorney general’s office over whether it was required to fork over payroll taxes on what should have been classified as taxable income, The Times reported.
The Trump Organization issued a statement in response to the charges that will be unveiled, according to CNBC.
“Allen Weisselberg is a loving and devoted husband, father and grandfather who has worked at the Trump Organization for 48 years,” the statement said.
“He is now being used by the Manhattan District Attorney as a pawn in a scorched-earth attempt to harm the former President,” it added.
“The District Attorney is bringing a criminal prosecution involving employee benefits that neither the IRS nor any other District Attorney would ever think of bringing. This is not justice; this is politics,” the statement said,
Trump Organization attorney Ron Fischetti has downplayed the accusations, which are the result of almost three years of investigation.
“In my more than 50 years of practice, never before have I seen the District Attorney’s Office target a company over employee compensation or fringe benefits,” he said in a statement to CNBC last week.
“The IRS would not, and has not, brought a case like this,” Fischetti said.
“Even the financial institutions responsible for causing the 2008 financial crises, the worst financial crisis since the great depression, were not prosecuted,” he said.
Prosecutors have focused on Weisselberg as part of a wider inquiry into former President Donald Trump, who is not expected to face charges Thursday, and his wide-ranging business interests.
On Monday, Trump issued a statement about the expected filing of charges, in which he called the prosecutors “Witch Hunters.”
“Radical Left New York City and State Prosecutors, who have let murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and all other forms of crime skyrocket to record levels, and who have just announced that they will be releasing hundreds of people involved in violent crime back onto the streets without retribution of any kind, are rude, nasty, and totally biased in the way they are treating lawyers, representatives, and some of the wonderful long-term employees and people within the Trump Organization,” Trump wrote.
“Having politically motivated prosecutors, people who actually got elected because they will ‘get Donald Trump,’ is a very dangerous thing for our Country. In the end, people will not stand for it. Remember, if they can do this to me, they can do it to anyone!”
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