Allen Weisselberg, who oversaw the finances at Donald Trump's companies for decades, will immediately head to jail Tuesday after being sentenced to five months for tax fraud, and then finally part ways with the Trump Organization.
Weisselberg, the firm's longtime chief financial officer, served three generations of the family but stepped down as CFO last year after striking a plea deal with prosecutors and stayed on as a senior advisor. He will leave the firm altogether after he completes his sentence, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because it is private. He will still receive his $500,000 annual bonus this month, the person said.
He was sentenced in Manhattan by New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.
Weisselberg, 75, was the prosecution's star witness last year at the criminal trial of two Trump companies, which were convicted in December. He was sentenced for his role in the crimes after pleading guilty to 15 felony counts in August. After the sentence was pronounced on Tuesday, he embraced his lawyer Nicholas Gravante and was led out by court officers.
The sentencing was half the capstone on a case that saw a Trump business convicted of criminal conduct for the first time. The other half comes Friday, when the two companies, whose conviction came months after Weisselberg's guilty plea, are scheduled to be sentenced. Codefendants are frequently sentenced separately, especially when one pleads guilty and the others go to trial.
Trump's troubles
Trump himself wasn't charged, but the sentencings come as he runs for president and amid a series of other legal threats to him. They include a $250 million civil case against the Trump Organization and three of his children by New York Attorney General Letitia James, as well as criminal probes of efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the treatment of classified government documents at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home.
Trump has called all the cases and investigations he faces, as well as the tax fraud trial, baseless political vendettas. Lawyers for the business units have said they would appeal the verdict.
In his plea deal, Weisselberg agreed to testify truthfully against the two business units, with the prospect of leniency at sentencing. Gravante said at the time that Weisselberg could have faced as many as 15 years in prison and that he hoped his client would instead win early release after serving 100 days.
Weisselberg has already paid $2.3 million in fines and penalties and back taxes, Gravante said.
'Put this all behind him'
"He's prepared and will ask to be remanded today, because he wants to begin serving his sentence and put this all behind him as soon as possible," Gravante said before the sentencing.
Weisselberg's testimony in the trial of the Trump companies made it easier to convict them in a clean sweep of the counts with which they were charged by the Manhattan district attorney's office.
"Without his testimony I don't think the government would have gotten guilty verdicts on all the counts," said Frank Agostino, a New Jersey tax attorney who has closely followed the case. Last fall he conducted a mock trial for the New York County Lawyers Association in which the jury acquitted the companies on at least one of the charges.
In closing arguments at the trial in December, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass argued that Trump
During the trial, Weisselberg told the jury about a long list of perks he didn't pay taxes on, saying Trump personally paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in private school tuition for Weisselberg's grandchildren and that he and his wife each got a Mercedes-Benz and an apartment paid for by the Trump companies.
'Are you embarrassed?'
Weisselberg, a Brooklyn native who trained as an accountant, started out working for Trump's father, Fred Trump, in 1973, and went on to work for three of Trump's children. He grew emotional on the witness stand when asked by Alan Futerfas, a lawyer for one of the two Trump companies, if he had betrayed the family's trust for his own personal gain.
"Are you embarrassed by what you did?" Futerfas asked him during cross-examination.
"More than you can imagine," Weisselberg said.
The case is People v. Trump Organization, 1473-2021, New York State Supreme Court (Manhattan).
— With assistance from Greg Farrell
