Trump's former chief financial officer in the negotiations pleads guilty to perjury
Allen H. Weisselberg, Donald J. Trump's longtime lieutenant, is negotiating a deal with Manhattan prosecutors that would require him to plead guilty to perjury, people with knowledge of the matter said.
As part of the possible deal with the Manhattan district attorney's office, Mr. Weisselberg would have to admit that he lied on the witness stand in Mr. Trump's recent civil fraud trial, the people said.
Mr. Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of Mr. Trump's family business, is also expected to say that he lied under oath during an interview with the New York attorney general's office, which brought the civil fraud case.
The situation arises from a web of criminal and civil cases brought by the two agencies and is believed to be the culmination of a long-running pressure campaign by the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, whose prosecutors had sought Mr. Weisselberg's cooperation when they investigated whether Mr. Trump had committed election fraud. and financial crimes. Even without Mr. Weisselberg's cooperation, they sued Mr. Trump last year in the election-related case, which is set to go to trial at the end of March.
The deal being negotiated is unlikely to require the 76-year-old Weisselberg to turn against his former boss. Although Mr. Weisselberg was involved in the action at the center of that case — a hush-money payment intended to bury a potential sex scandal just before the 2016 election — prosecutors are not expected to call him as a witness. And the investigation that most needed Mr. Weisselberg's help, the district attorney's probe into Mr. Trump's finances, may no longer be a priority for prosecutors.
While the potential deal is unlikely to directly impact Mr. Trump, it could strengthen Mr. Bragg's hand ahead of the former president's trial. It could deter other witnesses in Trump's inner circle from taking the stand. And accusations of perjury could discredit Mr. Weisselberg, who has disputed details of the prosecution's evidence in the case surrounding the 2016 election.
Yet Mr. Weisselberg, a fiercely loyal aide who for decades oversaw the finances of Mr. Trump's family business, the Trump Organization, already had a credibility problem: It will be his second guilty plea in Manhattan in two years.
Mr. Weisselberg previously admitted that he orchestrated a scheme to afford himself and other Trump Organization executives excessive luxuries. He went to jail on Rikers Island for about 100 days, and while he was there, the district attorney's office warned him that it could file new charges.
Mr. Bragg's office renewed that threat after last month's fraud trial, according to the people with knowledge of the matter, who requested anonymity to discuss confidential negotiations. That set off the plea negotiations. If the two sides cannot reach an agreement, the Public Prosecution Service may attempt to indict Mr. Weisselberg.
Prosecutors often argue that perjury – especially in a high-profile trial – undermines the broader purposes of justice and cannot be ignored.
But Mr. Trump's legal team has condemned what they say is an overzealous prosecution in service of a broader pursuit of Mr. Trump, and has argued that it would be unfair to send Mr. Weisselberg — a septuagenarian with no history of violence — to prison to be sent to prison for 15 years. second time.
Mr. Weisselberg's lawyer, Seth Rosenberg, declined to comment through a spokesman for his firm, Clayman Rosenberg Kirshner & Linder. A lawyer for Mr. Trump also declined to comment, but the former president has previously accused Mr. Bragg, a Democrat, of carrying out a politically motivated witch hunt against him and Mr. Weisselberg.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Bragg declined to comment.
It is not yet clear whether, if the deal goes through, Mr. Weisselberg will plead guilty to a low-level misdemeanor or a misdemeanor, or what his sentence could be.
It is also unclear which statements by Mr. Weisselberg in the civil fraud case caught prosecutors' attention — but trial transcripts offer hints.
In 2022, Attorney General Letitia James sued Mr. Trump, his adult sons and Mr. Weisselberg, accusing them of fraudulently overstating the value of the former president's assets to obtain favorable loans from banks. One of those assets was Mr. Trump's triplex apartment in Trump Tower, which is 10,996 square feet but had been listed on his financial statements for years as having an area of 30,000 square feet.
While testifying, Mr. Weisselberg claimed he “never focused on the unit.”
Shortly after, Forbes magazine published an article alleging that Mr. Weisselberg had lied under oath. The article cited emails and notes between the former chief financial officer and the magazine, which compiles a list of America's richest people, showing that Mr. Weisselberg “played a key role in efforts to take down Forbes over several years.” to convince” of the properties of the apartment. value.
After that article was published, Mr. Weisselberg abruptly stopped testifying.
Mr. Weisselberg was also questioned under oath about the plywood during an interview with Ms. James' office in 2020, statements that may now also be scrutinized by the district attorney's office.
A plea deal would conclude a legal odyssey for Mr. Weisselberg. After decades of serving the Trump family out of the public eye, his life was turned upside down in the summer of 2021, when Mr. Bragg's predecessor filed criminal charges against him and the Trump Organization for tax fraud involving luxury benefits.
In August 2022, Mr. Weisselberg pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against Mr. Trump's company. After the Trump Organization was convicted of tax fraud and other crimes that year, the judge, Juan M. Merchan, decided that Mr. Weisselberg had testified truthfully, as the deal required.
But none of Mr. Weisselberg's testimony had personally damaged Mr. Trump. In fact, in any case, Mr. Weisselberg has never provided any evidence that would prove the former president.
Mr. Weisselberg went to prison in early 2023, but not before Mr. Trump's company awarded him a $2 million severance package that required him not to cooperate with any law enforcement investigation unless required by law.
In April, while Mr. Weisselberg was on Rikers Island, Mr. Bragg announced criminal charges against Mr. Trump, stemming from what prosecutors said was a cover-up of the sex scandal in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign.
Mr. Bragg's prosecutors also renewed their pressure campaign while Mr. Weisselberg was behind bars. They offered him a way out: cooperate with the district attorney's office against Mr. Trump and avoid further prison time. Mr. Weisselberg still didn't budge.