Extract from ABC News
A New York judge has sentenced Donald Trump's namesake real estate company to pay a $US1.61 million ($2.31 million) criminal penalty after it was convicted of scheming to defraud tax authorities for 15 years.
Key points:
- A New York court imposed the maximum possible sentence under state law
- The Trump company's defence lawyers say the group will appeal
- It comes after the company's former CFO was sentenced to five months in jail this week
Justice Juan Merchan of the Manhattan criminal court imposed the sentence, the maximum possible under state law, after jurors found two Trump Organization affiliates guilty of 17 criminal charges last month.
Susan Necheles, one of the defence lawyers, said the company plans to appeal. No-one else was charged.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the case, is still conducting a criminal probe into Mr Trump's business practices.
"The sentencing today, along with the sentencing earlier this week, closes this important chapter of our ongoing investigation into the former president and his businesses," Mr Bragg told reporters.
"We now will go on to the next chapter."
Joshua Steinglass, one of the prosecutors, appeared to lament the size of the punishment, telling Justice Merchan the penalty was only a "tiny portion" of the Trump Organization's revenue.
Companies cannot be sentenced to jail or prison.
Penalty offers 'zero' deterrence
Bill Black, a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law specialising in white-collar crime, called the penalty a "rounding error" that offers "zero" deterrence.
"This is a farce. No-one will stop committing these kinds of crimes because of this sentence."
Mr Bragg said laws surrounding tax fraud had to be changed so that penalties could reflect the seriousness of the crime.
“I want to be very clear, we don’t think that is enough. Our laws in this state need to change in order to capture this type of decade-plus systemic and egregious fraud,” he said.
The case has long been a thorn in the side of the Republican former president, who calls it part of a witch hunt by Democrats who dislike him and his politics.
Mr Bragg and Ms James are Democrats, as is Mr Bragg's predecessor Cyrus Vance, who brought the criminal case.
Mr Trump is seeking the presidency in 2024, after losing his re-election bid in 2020.
Fraud 'sanctioned from the top down'
At a four-week trial, prosecutors offered evidence that Mr Trump's company covered personal expenses such as rent and car leases for executives without reporting them as income, and pretended that Christmas bonuses were non-employee compensation.
Mr Trump himself signed bonus cheques, prosecutors said, as well as the lease on Mr Weisselberg's luxury Manhattan apartment and private school tuition for the CFO's grandchildren.
"A number of these fraudulent practices were explicitly sanctioned from the top down," Mr Steinglass said at Friday's hearing.
Despite testifying for the government, Mr Weisselberg said Mr Trump was not part of the fraud scheme, and refused to help Mr Bragg in his broader investigation into the former president.
The Trump Organization had put Mr Weisselberg on paid leave until they severed ties this week. His lawyer said the split, announced on Tuesday, was amicable.
Mr Weisselberg, 75, is serving his sentence in New York City's notorious Rikers Island jail.
Mr Trump faces several other legal woes, including probes related to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, his retention of classified documents after leaving the White House and efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.
Reuters
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