If you’re going to hire a Jew to do your finances, don’t hire one named “Weisselberg.”
That is bound to end in some kind of tragedy.
Prosecutors in New York on Thursday charged the Trump Organization with running a yearslong off-the-books payment scheme allowing certain top employees — including its chief financial officer — to avoid paying taxes on that compensation.
That executive, Allen Weisselberg, also faces charges for financial crimes, including grand larceny in the second degree. That crime alone could bring a 15-year prison sentence.
Weisselberg has pleaded not guilty.
Allen Weisselberg pictured leaving Manhattan Criminal Court after his arraignment in State Supreme Court.
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance brought the charges, in concert with attorneys from New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office. Both officials are Democrats, and former President Donald Trump has claimed their investigation is politically motivated.
The charges come after Manhattan prosecutors spent more than two years combing through the Trump Organization’s financial information. They also won a Supreme Court fight to secure and scrutinize eight years’ worth of Trump’s personal tax returns.
The indictment focuses on how the Trump Organization provided some top executives with fringe benefits and other perks.
It alleges that Weisselberg and several top executives received valuable perks that they did not pay taxes on. Those perks included private school tuition, apartments, and cars. Weisselberg is charged with evading payments on more than $900,000 in city, state and federal taxes due to the scheme, the indictment alleges. It also alleges he received more than $133,000 in tax refunds that he wasn’t entitled to. Prosecutors allege that the scheme ran over the course of 15 years.
The former president and members of his family were not indicted. Investigators have said their work is ongoing.
The courtroom held dozens of masked spectators, mostly press, seated one seat apart under social distancing protocols. The hearing took less than half an hour. Vance and James both attended the court hearing, arriving together and sitting next to each other in the front row. They departed together at the end of the proceedings, without comment.
Weisselberg was led into the 11th floor courtroom in handcuffs, then unshackled before the hearing began.
Trump is again “not yet charged yet,” but the feds are clearly building up a case around him, getting as many people as possible gathered together that will testify against him.
Who knows if they are actually going to charge him with something and put him in prison. What they are doing is making sure they have that option lined up.
Of course, that will mean they can go to him and make any demand and he’ll have to go along with it because as we’ve seen, he’s scared to death of prison.
Seeing a bunch of Jews in the media say “can you believe this weasel Weisselberg that Trump had working for him???” is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve seen so far.
Here’s trump org CFO Allen Weisselberg being taken away in handcuffs pic.twitter.com/tBbRKwMg0d
— Scott Dworkin (@funder) July 1, 2021