5/12/2024 0 Comments Nytimes election results 2016The former executive said that when he asked for the apartment's size in 2012, Weisselberg replied: "It's quite large. A former Trump real estate executive testified that Weisselberg provided the figure. Trump valued the apartment on his financial statements from at least 2012 to 2016 as though it measured 30,000 square feet (2,800 square meters). The size of Trump's penthouse was a key issue in the civil fraud case. To avoid violating his tax case probation, however, he agreed to plead guilty only to charges related to his 2020 deposition testimony. He admitted lying under oath on three occasions while testifying in New York Attorney General Letitia James' lawsuit against Trump: in depositions in July 2020 and May 2023 and on the witness stand at the trial last October. Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office and Weisselberg's lawyer Seth Rosenberg both declined to address the court, as did Weisselberg who was swiftly escorted from courtroom. Trump's lawyers took issue with Weisselberg's perjury prosecution, accusing the Manhattan district attorney's office of deploying "unethical, strong-armed tactics against an innocent man in his late 70s" while turning "a blind eye" to perjury allegations against Michael Cohen, the former Trump lawyer who is now a key prosecution witness in the hush money case. Prior to that, he had no criminal record. Weisselberg's sentence mirrors his previous case, in which he was ordered to serve five months in jail but was eligible for release after little more than three months with good behavior. Prosecutors promised not to prosecute Weisselberg for other crimes he might have committed in connection with his Trump Organization employment. In New York, perjury is a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison. In agreeing to a five-month sentence, prosecutors cited Weisselberg's age and willingness to admit wrongdoing. His plea agreement does not require him to testify at Trump's hush money criminal trial, which is scheduled to start with jury selection Monday. Weisselberg testified twice in trials that went badly for Trump, but each time he took pains to suggest that his boss hadn't committed any serious wrongdoing. The company continues to pay his legal bills. Trump's family employed Weisselberg for nearly 50 years, then gave him a $2 million severance deal when the tax charges prompted him to retire. The two cases highlight Weisselberg's unflinching loyalty to Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Now, he's again trading life as a Florida retiree for a stay at New York City's notorious Rikers Island jail complex. The former Trump Organization chief financial officer served 100 days last year for dodging taxes on $1.7 million in company perks, including a rent-free Manhattan apartment and luxury cars. It will be Weisselberg's second time behind bars. He admitted lying when he testified he had little knowledge of how Trump's Manhattan penthouse came to be valued on his financial statements at nearly three times its actual size. Weisselberg, 76, pleaded guilty last month to two counts of perjury in connection with the suit. NEW YORK (AP) - Allen Weisselberg, a retired executive in Donald Trump's real estate empire, was sentenced on Wednesday to five months in jail for lying under oath during his testimony in the civil fraud lawsuit brought against the former president by New York's attorney general.
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