Trump firms’ tax fraud trial goes to jury
Jurors reminded that Trump is not on trial
NEW YORK – Jurors in the criminal tax fraud trial of two companies in former President Donald Trump’s business empire began deliberations Monday following spirited closing arguments and a rejected call for a mistrial last week.
The panel of eight men and four women started deliberating after Acting Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, the trial judge, gave them instructions about the law and a directive about Trump.
The former president became the subject of the mistrial motion after Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass asserted Friday that Trump “explicitly” sanctioned the alleged tax fraud scheme at the heart of the case.
Defense lawyer Susan Necheles stressed that evidence showed Trump was not involved. The former president is not charged in the case and did not appear in the courtroom during the trial. However, Trump criticized the prosecution in a social media post late last month.
Merchan reminded jurors that they had promised to put all personal feelings about Trump aside.
“I now remind you of your promise and reiterate that Donald Trump and his family are not on trial before you,” said Merchan. He also told the jurors to arrive at their verdict solely “on the evidence and the law against the two defendants” who are charged in the case.
After a few hours of deliberations that began midday Monday, the judge dismissed the jury for the day and told them to return to court Tuesday to resume their efforts to arrive at a verdict.
Trump is mounting a third presidential campaign amid multiple legal cases and investigations. Those matters, and the potential of a criminal conviction in the New York case, could buffet his new campaign for the White House.
The two companies charged in the case, the Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation, face criminal fines of up to $1.6 million if they’re found guilty on all counts, along with potential reputational damage.
The firms are charged in an alleged long-running scheme of doling out offthe-books perks such as leases for company-paid apartments and luxury cars to top executives who did not pay taxes on the value of that income.
The companies pleaded not guilty. Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of Trump’s businesses and an employee of the Trump family for nearly half a century, pleaded guilty to 15 criminal counts in August and became the prosecution’s star witness.
Merchan’s legal instructions focused on a New York state penal law that spells out the circumstances when corporations may be found guilty of committing a crime. It states that a conviction could be supported if evidence shows the alleged criminal activity involved a “high managerial agent acting within the scope of his employment and in behalf of the corporation.”
That could be Weisselberg and or Jeffrey McConney, the controller of the Trump Organization, who grudgingly testified as a government witness after he was granted immunity from prosecution. McConney acknowledged that he helped Weisselberg and other top Trump executives to evade taxes.
The judge told jurors they could convict the two corporations of scheming to defraud, one of the charges in the case, only if they determined that prosecutors had proved six elements, including that Weisselberg and/or McConney committed criminal acts, intended to defraud one of more persons and illegally obtained $1,000 or more by their actions.