Former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg was sentenced Wednesday to five months in prison after pleading guilty to lying under oath during his testimony in a civil fraud case filed against former President Trump by the New York Attorney General. Letitia James.
Weisselberg, 76, pleaded guilty on March 4 to two counts of perjury. He admitted to lying under oath on three occasions — depositions in July 2020 and May 2023 and on the witness stand at trial last October — when he testified that he had little knowledge of how Trump’s Manhattan penthouse was valued among his financial holdings. statement at nearly three times its actual size.
To avoid violating his probation in a separate tax case, however, Weisselberg agreed to plead guilty to charges related to his 2020 deposition testimony.
Weisselberg, wearing a black windbreaker and surgical face mask, refused to appear in court during the brief sentencing, which lasted less than five minutes. He was quickly led from the courtroom in handcuffs following the trial to begin serving his sentence, The Associated Press reported.
The civil fraud trial ended with Judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling that Trump and some of his executives conspired to defraud banks, insurers and others by lying about his wealth in financial statements that used to make deals and secure loans. The judge fined Trump $455 million and ordered Weisselberg to pay $1 million. They are both appealing.
EX-TRUMP ORG CFO ALLEN WEISSELBERG PLEADS GUILTY IN MANHATTAN COURT
Allen Weisselberg, right, stands behind former-President-elect Donald Trump during a news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, Jan. 11, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
In his decision, Engoron said he found Weisselberg’s testimony “deliberately evasive” and “grossly unreliable.”
This will be Weisselberg’s second time behind bars. The former Trump Organization CFO served 100 days last year for evading taxes on $1.7 million in company perks, including a rent-free Manhattan apartment and luxury cars. He will once again trade life as a Florida retiree to stay in New York City’s infamous Rikers Island jail complex.
The Trump family employed Weisselberg for nearly 50 years, then gave him a $2 million severance deal when tax charges prompted him to retire. The company continues to pay his legal fees.
Allen Weisselberg, a former longtime executive in former President Trump’s real estate empire, arrives in court in New York, Wednesday, April 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
FORMER TRUMP ORGANIZATION CFO ALLEN WEISSELBERG SENTENCED TO 5 MONTHS AFTER PLED GUILTY TO TAX CRIMES
Weisselberg has testified twice in trials for Trump. His plea agreement does not require him to testify in Trump’s hush money criminal trial, which is set to begin with jury selection on Monday. In agreeing to a five-month sentence, prosecutors cited Weisselberg’s age and willingness to admit wrongdoing. In New York, perjury is a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison. Prosecutors have promised not to prosecute Weisselberg for other crimes he may have committed in connection with his work at the Trump Organization.
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 “turned a blind eye” to perjury allegations against Michael Cohen, the former Trump lawyer who is now a key prosecution witness in the case against Trump involving hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Allen Weisselberg, a former longtime executive in former President Trump’s real estate empire, arrives for his sentencing in New York on Wednesday, April 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office and Weisselberg’s attorney, Seth Rosenberg, declined to appear in court, according to the AP.
Trump valued the penthouse in his financial statements from 2012 to 2016 as being about 30,000 square feet. A former Trump real estate executive testified that Weisselberg provided the figure. The former executive said that when he asked the size of the apartment in 2012, Weisselberg replied: “It’s pretty big. I think it’s around 30,000 square feet.”
However, state attorneys said, Weisselberg received an email earlier that year with a 1994 document attached that pegged Trump’s apartment at 10,996 square feet. Weisselberg testified that he remembered the email but not the attachment and that he did not “walk around knowing the size” of the apartment.
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After Forbes magazine published an article in 2017 disputing the size of Trump’s penthouse, its estimated value on his financial statement was reduced from $327 million to $117 million.
While Weisselberg was testifying in October, Forbes published an article headlined “Trump’s Longtime CFO Lied, Under Oath, About Trump Tower Penthouse.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
