Longtime Trump CFO Weisselberg to Report to Jail and Leave Firm

Patricia Hurtado
·5 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- Allen Weisselberg, who oversaw the finances at Donald Trump’s companies for decades, was led out of a Manhattan courtroom in handcuffs after being sentenced to 5 months in jail for tax fraud, and will finally part ways with the Trump Organization.

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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, staying on as a senior adviser at his full $640,000 salary. The 75-year-old executive will leave the firm after he completes his sentence at New York’s notorious Rikers Island complex, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because it is private. He received his $500,000 annual bonus this month, the person said.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over the criminal tax fraud trial of the two Trump companies convicted in December, said Tuesday that he almost decided to impose a far longer sentence on Weisselberg after hearing his trial testimony about a payment to his wife “to which she was not entitled.”

Read More: Trump Companies Are Convicted in NY Criminal Tax Fraud Trial

Weisselberg, who became the prosecution’s star witness after pleading guilty to 15 felony counts in August, testified that he paid his wife $6,000 to put her on the payroll just so she could collect Social Security payments.

“The entire case was driven by greed,” Merchan said. “But perhaps nothing spoke more loudly to that greed than the $6,000 payment to his wife,” when the couple was already wealthy, he said.

The sentencing was half the capstone on a case that saw a Trump business convicted of criminal conduct for the first time, for hiding compensation from tax authorities by disguising it as perks. The other half comes Friday, when the two companies are scheduled to be sentenced. Codefendants are frequently sentenced separately, especially when one pleads guilty and the others go to trial. Lawyers for the two business units have said they would appeal the verdict.

After the judge pronounced his sentence on Tuesday, Weisselberg embraced his lawyer Nicholas Gravante and was led out by court officers. He will be held in an isolated unit of Rikers often used for protective custody of high-profile detainees, rather than in the general population, the person said.

“Today is obviously a difficult day for him,” Gravante said outside the courthouse after the hearing. “But it is a day that he has been preparing for for many months.” He said his client regrets his conduct “most because of the pain that it caused his loving wife, his sons and wonderful grandchildren” and “also regrets the harm his actions have caused the Trump Organization and members of the Trump family.”

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.

QuickTake: What Trump’s Legal Perils Mean for Trump’s Candidacy

In his plea deal, Weisselberg agreed to testify truthfully against the business units, with the prospect of leniency at sentencing. Gravante said at the time that his client could have faced as many as 15 years in prison and that he hoped he 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.

Convicting the Companies

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.

Read More: Trump Knew of Alleged Tax Scam, Controller Says CFO Told Him

In closing arguments at the trial in December, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass argued that Trump “explicitly sanctioned tax fraud.” Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has signaled that he isn’t finished with the office’s investigation of Trump, which appeared to stall early last year with the departure of two top prosecutors hired by Bragg’s predecessor.

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).

Read More

  • Trump Said Fight It When DA Charged His Firms With Tax Fraud

  • ‘He Was the Boss’: Trump’s Sign-Offs Come Up in Tax Fraud Trial

  • Longtime Trump CFO Weisselberg Pleads Guilty to Tax Fraud

--With assistance from Greg Farrell.

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