The Guy Who Could Single-Handedly Send Trump to Prison May Soon Cooperate With the Feds - Vanity Fair

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One of the central figures in the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal investigation into Donald Trump is Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg. An employee of the firm for decades, Weisselberg has personally described himself as Trump’s “eyes and ears” at the company, and as his former colleague Michael Cohen has put it, “Allen Weisselberg [knows] every single dollar in, and every single dollar—not even dollar, to the penny. Every single penny in and every penny out [goes] through Allen Weisselberg’s desk, and then [is] reported, before and after, to Donald J. Trump.” Obviously someone with such detailed knowledge of the finances of the company would make an extremely helpful witness to Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance Jr., which is why the prosecutor has been working for months to get Weisselberg to flip and cooperate against the ex-president. And based on new developments, it sounds like he just might!

The New York Times reports that the D.A.’s office appears to have “entered the final stages of a criminal tax investigation” into Weisselberg, who could personally face charges this summer. The investigation into the CFO, which Vance’s office is likely using to pressure him to flip and save himself, reportedly focuses in part on the possibility that Weisselberg failed to pay taxes on benefits Trump provided to him and his family over the years, such as apartments, cars, and thousands of dollars in private school tuition. As The Washington Post reported in March, Vance’s office has been “delving deeply into the personal and financial affairs” of Weisselberg, with an additional focus on his adult sons, Barry Weisselberg and Jack Weisselberg, “a tactic that could be an effort to increase pressure on the elder Weisselberg.” Jack works at Ladder Capital, which, according to the Post, happened to loan the Trump Organization more than $270 million. More significantly, Barry is a Trump Organization employee who managed the Wollman ice rink for the company before the city ended its contract. In April, Barry’s ex-wife, Jennifer Weisselberg, turned over numerous financial documents to Vance’s office containing information on her ex-husband’s bank accounts and credit cards, as well as his statements of net worth and tax filings. “My knowledge of the documents and my voice connect the flow of money from various banks and from personal finances that bleed directly into the Trump Organization,” she said. And according to the Post, those documents contain information that has likely been of particular interest to prosecutors:

The documents show an array of payments and perks that Barry Weisselberg and his family received as a result of his employment for Trump’s company over 18 years, likely raising key questions for investigators analyzing the finances of the cash-only skating rink and working to ascertain whether the proper taxes were paid…. In [his divorce] deposition, Weisselberg acknowledged making errors in explaining information about his finances. He said, for instance, that he had forgotten that he shared an investment account with his father and he misstated his salary, prompting interjections from his attorneys when repeatedly confronted with contradictory information, the transcript shows.

He could not answer some questions about his taxes, the transcript shows. When asked whether taxes had been paid on the corporate apartment where his family previously lived, he said he wasn’t sure. Asked how the company determined the size of his bonuses, which tallied about $40,000 annually from 2015 to 2017, he said he had “no idea.” When pressed in the deposition to explain discrepancies between what he said he earned and what he reported on tax forms for the Internal Revenue Service, he said: “I’m not an accountant. I know what I make. I’m not too sure of certain things.”

Despite earning $200,000 a year for “as long as he could remember,” Barry said in the deposition that while he and Jennifer were together, they lived rent-free for a number of years in Trump-owned apartments, adding that he had no idea how taxes on one of the properties were handled. Last month the Manhattan D.A. subpoenaed the private school that Barry’s children, who are Weisselberg’s grandchildren, attend; according to Jennifer, from 2012 to 2019, more than $500,000 in tuition payments were made with checks signed by either Weisselberg or Trump, which could have been a way for the Weisselbergs to avoid taxes. Vance’s office reportedly secured the senior Weisselberg’s tax returns earlier this year, in addition to personal bank records, while the Trump Organization was asked to hand over documents “related to any benefits Mr. Trump or the company may have provided to other employees.”

According to the Times, should prosecutors seek charges against Weisselberg, they could choose from a variety of alleged crimes, including scheme to defraud, tax fraud, or grand larceny. The fallout from tax fraud, per the Times, “would be steeper than under the scheme-to-defraud charge,” as failing to pay more than $10,000 in taxes in a single year can be punishable by a maximum of seven years in prison. (Scheming to defraud holds a sentence of up to four years.) “Those dollar amounts could make it relatively easy for the Manhattan district attorney to make a criminal case,” said Cono R. Namorato, a former senior official at the Justice Department’s tax division.

The Link Lonk


June 16, 2021 at 11:08PM
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/allen-weisselberg-criminal-charges-trump-flip

The Guy Who Could Single-Handedly Send Trump to Prison May Soon Cooperate With the Feds - Vanity Fair

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