Trump’s longtime CFO Allen Weisselberg gets five months in jail for tax-dodging scheme

Longtime Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg has been jailed for five months for evading taxes on $1.7 million in employment benefits.

The 75-year-old is set to serve his sentence on the notorious Rikers Island in New York City after conceding to the 15-year plan where executives were given bonuses and benefits instead of higher pay to save the company already themselves huge sums of money. in taxes

Benefits provided by the company included rent for his Manhattan apartment, car rentals for him and his wife, and private school tuition for his grandchildren.

Weisselberg pleaded guilty in August after paying nearly $2 million in taxes, penalties and interest and testifying in the criminal trial of The Trump Organization, which was convicted on all charges it faced.

In exchange for his testimony, he was offered the five-month sentence as part of a plea deal.

Judge Manuel Merchan, who handed down the sentence, said he was hesitant to jail Weisselberg for just five months.

‘If it wasn’t for me making that promise, I wouldn’t be imposing a five-month sentence. I would be imposing a much higher sentence,” he said in court.

“Most significant was the $6,000 payroll payment to Mr. Weisselberg’s wife and the reason I find it so offensive is that it was driven purely by greed,” Merchan added.

Merchan said Weisselberg had put his wife on the payroll so that “she could one day benefit from social security payments to which she was not entitled.”

Many convicts in New York City facing a year or less behind bars head to Rikers Island, which lies between the Queens and Bronx boroughs of New York City and is home to more than 5,900 inmates.

Weisselberg will be eligible for release after just three months if he behaves well behind bars. He will have to complete five years of probation when he is released.

Those days probably won’t be easy for Weisselberg in a prison known for violence, drugs and corruption. Nineteen inmates there died last year.

“You’re walking into a Byzantine black hole,” said Craig Rothfeld, a prison consultant helping Weisselberg prepare for incarceration.

Rothfeld spent more than five weeks at Rikers in 2015 and 2016 as part of an 18-month sentence for defrauding investors and tax authorities when he was chief executive of the now-defunct WJB Capital Group Inc.

He now runs Inside Outside Ltd, which advises people facing prison. Another client is Harvey Weinstein, the former Hollywood film producer convicted twice of rape.

During questioning by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger Tuesday in a New York state court in November, Weisselberg testified that beginning in 2005, the Trump Organization paid the $7,000 to $8,000 monthly rent on her Manhattan apartment, as well as her utility bills. public services, telephone and parking. .

Weisselberg said the rent and related expenses increased to about $200,000 a year. He said that if the Trump Organization had given him a raise to cover those expenses, it would have cost the company double to count the resulting taxes.

After being sentenced, Weisselberg is likely to be taken to Rikers and trade his street clothes for a uniform and sneakers with Velcro straps.

Rothfeld said he hopes Weisselberg is segregated from the general population and not placed in a dormitory with inmates who may not know him but do know his boss, who is seeking the presidency in 2024.

“Certainly Mr. Weisselberg’s 50-year relationship with the former president is on our minds,” Rothfeld said.

A spokesperson for the city’s Department of Correction said the agency’s mission is to “create a safe and supportive environment for everyone who comes into our custody.”

Rikers is scheduled to close in 2027.

Weisselberg was the government’s star witness against his employer.

He told jurors that Trump signed bonus and tuition checks, and other documents at the center of the prosecutors’ case, but was not involved in the tax fraud scheme.

Although he is no longer chief financial officer, Weisselberg remains on paid leave from the Trump Organization. He testified in November that he expected to receive a $500,000 bonus this month.

Weisselberg testified that the company is paying its lawyers. It is also paying Rothfeld, a person familiar with the matter said. Rothfeld declined to comment.

Trump was not charged and has denied any wrongdoing. The Manhattan district attorney’s office is still investigating his business practices.

Merchan will also sentence the Trump Organization on Friday. Penalties are limited to $1.6 million.

Weisselberg remains a defendant in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million civil lawsuit alleging that Trump and his company inflated the values ​​of Trump’s assets and net worth.

Rothfeld said he advised Weisselberg not to go outside at Rikers because of the risk of violence in the yards, and not to intrude on conversations between other inmates. “The goal is to support yourself,” Rothfeld said.