adminFormer Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg on Wednesday was sentenced to five months in jail for lying under oath during the civil business fraud trial of Donald Trump.
Weisselberg declined to speak before the judge in a brief hearing in Manhattan criminal court. The 76-year-old former executive is expected to head directly to Rikers Island to begin serving the sentence on two counts of perjury in the first degree.
It will be Weisselberg’s second time behind bars in two years in connection with his work for Trump’s company. He spent three months in jail at Rikers last year after pleading guilty to helping orchestrate a tax fraud scheme at the business.
The tax and perjury charges were brought by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is prosecuting Trump on charges of falsifying business records as part of a hush money scheme.
That case is set to head to trial Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court. Weisselberg is not required to testify in it. Trump’s attorneys have tried numerous times to delay the trial, including by claiming that Weisselberg’s sentencing was scheduled deliberately near it in order to drum up more negative news coverage against Trump.
New York appellate judges on Monday and Tuesday of this week rejected two other recent attempts by Trump’s attorneys to postpone the hush money trial.
Weisselberg on March 4 admitted lying during his testimony in the civil fraud trial brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James against Trump, his two adult sons, his business and its executives.
Weisselberg falsely testified that he was unfocused on the details of Trump’s triplex apartment, which was valued at almost three times its actual size on Trump’s financial statements.
Weisselberg pleaded guilty to two counts of lying about the size of that apartment during a 2020 investigative deposition, his plea deal with prosecutors showed.
But he also admitted to committing conduct related to three additional perjury counts, which centered on false statements Weisselberg made in a May 2023 deposition, and in his trial testimony in October.
Trump was found liable for fraudulently inflating the values of his properties and other assets on years of financial forms. Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay a total of $454 million in fines and interest. Trump is appealing that verdict.
A lawyer for Weisselberg did not immediately respond to a request for comment ahead of his sentencing.
Read the full article here
