Donald Trump will learn on Friday how a company named after the former US president will be punished after he was found guilty of conspiring to defraud tax authorities for 15 years.
A New York state judge will hand down the sentence after a Manhattan jury found two people associated with the Trump Organization guilty of 17 criminal charges last month.
The sentence came three days after Manhattan Criminal Court Justice Joanne Murchan called Alan Weiselberg, who worked for the Trump family for half a century and was the company’s former chief financial officer, as the prosecution’s star witness. He was sent to jail for five months after testifying. .
Trump’s company faces a maximum fine of just $1.6 million, but has said it plans to appeal. No one else has been charged or faces jail time in the case.
The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, which brought the case, is conducting a criminal investigation into Trump’s business practices.
Bill Black, a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law who specializes in white-collar crime, called the expected sentence a “rounding error” that offers “zero deterrence” to others, including Trump.
He said that this is a myth. “This sentence will not deter anyone from committing these types of crimes.”
The case has long been a thorn in the side of the Republican ex-president, who sees it as part of a witch hunt by Democrats who dislike him and his politics.
Trump is also facing a $250 million civil lawsuit by state Attorney General Letitia James against him and his adult children, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump, to save money on loans and insurance. Charged with increasing the value and value of your company’s assets.
Bragg and James are Democrats, as is Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance, who brought the criminal case. Trump is seeking the presidency in 2024 after losing his 2020 re-election bid.
In the four-week trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Trump’s company paid personal expenses like rent and car leases to executives without reporting them as income, and pretended that Christmas bonuses were non-employee compensation.
Prosecutors said Trump signed the bonus checks himself, as well as leases for Wesselberg’s luxury Manhattan apartment and private school tuition for the CFO’s grandchildren.
“The whole narrative of Donald Trump being blissfully ignorant is not true,” Assistant District Attorney Joshua Stenglass told jurors in his closing arguments.
Wesselberg’s testimony helped convict the company, although he said Trump was not part of the fraud scheme. He also refused to help Bragg with his broader investigation into Trump.
The Trump Organization had placed Wesselberg on paid leave until severing ties this week. His lawyer said the separation announced Tuesday was amicable.
Wesselberg, 75, is serving his sentence at New York City’s notorious Rikers Island prison.
State law limits the penalties Justice Merchan can impose on Trump’s company. A corporation can be fined up to $250,000 for each tax-related count and $10,000 for each non-tax count.
Trump faces a number of other legal troubles, including an investigation dating back to January. 6, 2021, the attack on the US Capitol, his retention of classified documents after leaving the White House, and his efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss in Georgia.