A criminal court jury in New York on Tuesday found the Trump Organization guilty of all charges in a sweeping, 15-year tax fraud scheme that prosecutors said was orchestrated by top executives at the company.
Jurors deliberated for just over a day before returning the guilty verdicts.
The charges stem from investigations by the New York Attorney General and Manhattan District Attorney’s Office into allegations that the Trump Organization defrauded the government by helping Chief Financial Officer Allan Weisselberg and other executives avoid taxes, through undeclared compensation in the form of free rent on a housing unit, car leases, utility payments and school fees for his grandchildren.
Weisselberg had previously pled guilty to 15 individual criminal charges against him in the case and struck a plea deal with prosecutors, maintaining that Trump was not personally involved in his scheme.
The guilty verdict comes after a long legal battle between New York state and Trump, who left the state in 2019 during his presidential term and established residency in Florida, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.
Trump, calling the investigation a “witch hunt” against him for political reasons, had initially refused to provide either subpoenaed documents or personal testimony in the civil case relating to the charges and only did so after exhausting all appeals to a court order to do so.
He was initially held in contempt of court for non-compliance and later pled the 5th Amendment nearly 400 times in his deposition on Aug. 10.
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Trump, who was not charged in the case, took to Truth Social on Tuesday, saying, “Murder and Violent Crime is at an all time high in NYC, and the D.A.’s office has spent almost all of its time & money fighting a political Witch Hunt for D.C. against “Trump” over Fringe Benefits, something that in the history of our Country, has never been so tried in Court before. Two weeks at trial, yet no MURDER CASE has gone to trial in 6 years, much to the consternation of victims mothers and families who are devastated that NOTHING is being done to bring JUSTICE. Too busy on “Donald.”
Trump is currently facing other legal jeopardy, such as a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice for possession of highly classified information as a private citizen, which led to a controversial FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago in August.
This is a developing story; check back for updates.
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