Weisselberg gets 5-month jail term at Rikers
NEW YORK — Allen Weisselberg, once one of Donald Trump’s most loyal lieutenants, was sentenced Tuesday to five months at the Rikers Island jail complex for his role in a tax fraud scheme that led to the conviction of the Trump Organization last year.
A state court judge handed down the sentence after Weisselberg, 75, who worked for the Trump family for the past halfcentury, testified as the prosecution’s star witness at the trial of the company. Weisselberg, its former chief financial officer, had been facing years in prison. Under a plea deal, he agreed to testify in exchange for a punishment that, with good behavior, might last no more than 100 days.
Still, Weisselberg’s lawyer, Nicholas A. Gravante Jr., pleaded with the judge in state Supreme Court in Manhattan on Tuesday to impose a lighter sentence, citing his client’s military service, lack of a criminal record, and the many hours he had spent with prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office preparing for the testimony.
“Each month makes a big difference when you’re 75 years old,” Gravante said.
But the judge, Juan Merchan, rejected the defense’s request and said that had he not promised the sentence of five months in August, the evidence at trial would have prompted him to impose a significantly longer sentence. “The entire case was driven by greed,” Merchan said.
Weisselberg initially will be assigned to the North Infirmary Command, a jail on Rikers Island that houses people with serious medical conditions as well as a portion of the general population.
The sentencing punctuated a precipitous fall for Weisselberg, who like other Trump insiders before him, had his misdeeds placed under a microscope and ultimately lost his freedom, collateral damage from a wider investigation into Trump himself.
As an older man with frail health, Weisselberg faces particularly stark consequences: He will serve time at a notorious jail complex where more than a dozen people died last year, with no promise that the district attorney will forgo additional charges against him.
His ties to the Trumps are also becoming tenuous. After a decadeslong entanglement with Weisselberg, the Trump Organization has parted ways with him as of Tuesday, according to people with knowledge of the matter. He has been on paid leave and is expected to receive a severance package.
The company has good reason not to alienate Weisselberg. While his testimony helped convict the Trump Organization, he has refused to turn on Trump to assist Bragg’s broader investigation into the former president.
And as the district attorney’s inquiry remains active, with prosecutors interested in Weisselberg’s help as they investigate Trump for his role in hush-money payments made to a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign, it would be risky to cast him aside.
As part of Weisselberg’s plea deal — which required him to plead guilty to scheming to defraud, grand larceny, conspiracy, and tax fraud — he already paid New York authorities more than $2 million in taxes, penalties, and interest that he owed after reaping lavish off-the-books perks from Trump and his company.
The company, which was convicted on all 17 counts of tax fraud and other financial crimes, will be sentenced Friday. It faces up to $1.6 million in penalties..