One is known as a legal street fighter who takes his hostile style on the airwaves. The other has a reputation for being a clever tactician, famous for getting to the bottom of things.
Together they form the legal queer couple who will represent Donald Trump when he arrives in Manhattan early Tuesday morning to be arrested.
Legal observers say Joe Tacopina most closely follows Trump’s bombastic style.
“Combative, media-obsessed and a willing partner of questionable characters – Donald J. Trump found a kindred spirit in the New York attorney who will represent him in a landmark criminal prosecution,” began a profile written by Law360.
Susan Necheles may be a lesser known figure, but she is equally familiar with conducting business in the glare of the New York tabloid media and has a history of mounting unconventional defenses.
Joe Tacopina and Susan Necheles are both veterans of the New York celebrity trials circuit. But while Tacopina is known as a street fighter, Necheles brings a more academic approach
Supporters have gathered near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, every day since he warned he would be arrested two weeks ago. A grand jury indicted him Thursday
Both have been part of Team Trump’s media campaign since a Manhattan grand jury voted Thursday to indict the former president.
While the indictments remain sealed, the grand jury had heard evidence related to a $130,000 hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016.
“Let me make something very clear. Whether he was in a relationship or not, or a one-night stand, even if he adamantly denies it… it doesn’t change the fact that that’s not a crime,” Tacopina told the News Nations after details of the charges emerged. had come. .
He will visit the television studios on Sunday and deliver a message that the allegations will not stand up to serious scrutiny on the morning news shows.
Litigation in the spotlight is nothing new to him. He represented rapper Meek Mill, Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancé Kimberly Guilfoyle before the January 6 House committee, and former Yankees baseball star Alex Rodriguez.
He told Reuters before the indictment that he is not afraid of controversial matters and that he and Trump have a relationship of “mutual respect.”
One of his first jobs Tuesday morning is to get his high-profile client safely inside the lower Manhattan courthouse.
On one famous occasion, that involved a body double. Rapper Sticky Fingaz wanted to avoid the waiting crowd, so his driver donned a fedora hat and sunglasses before walking to the main entrance with Tacopina, distracting the media while his actual client used a side entrance.
A grand jury has heard evidence of allegations Donald Trump paid $130,000 to adult film star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence on their affair
Tacopina took on Meek Mill’s case after he was sentenced to four years in prison for violating parole. Mill was released after serving five months
That mix of cunning and bravura is something that will appeal to Trump. And his colleagues say it helps him in court.
“He has the unique ability to infuriate a judge and have the judge charmed by him within ten minutes,” one prosecutor said. Politics.
Both lawyers have experience with other cases involving Trump. Tacopina is representing Trump in a defamation lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll after he denied her allegation that he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.
And Necheles last year defended the Trump Organization when it was accused of tax fraud.
She referred to “President Trump” throughout, but told the court she was not making a political point.
Necheles was counsel to Genoese crime family underboss Venero Mangano, who was known as “Benny Eggs” because of the egg shop run by his mother
“My parents were immigrants and migrants,” she said. “And in my house we called all former presidents presidents out of respect for the office, whether we supported him or disagreed with him.”
Like Tacopina, some of her cases are made for tabloid fodder. She served as counsel to Genoese crime family underboss Venero Mangano, who was known as “Benny Eggs” because of the egg shop run by his mother.
The Yale law graduate represented John Gotti’s attorney, Bruce Cutler, in a contempt of court case in the early 1990s.
And more recently, she defended booze heiress Clare Bronfman in the NXIVM cult case.
In 2010 she made headlines when she used a “divine defense” for a developer accused of defrauding Hasidic families in a subprime mortgage fraud.
Her client, she said, had received a blessing from a rabbi to build affordable housing.
“It was a mitzvah for him, a Hebrew word meaning a good deed and an obligation,” she said in her opening speech.