Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg was sentenced to five months in jail for lying under oath during testimony in a civil fraud case against former President Donald Trump.
Judge Laurie Peterson presided over the brief sentencing, lasting about five minutes on Wednesday.
Mr. Weisselberg had pleaded guilty to perjury in the civil case on March 4 as part of a plea bargain in a separate criminal case. As part of the deal, he will not need to testify in President Trump’s criminal trial in New York, which begins April 15.
Prosecutors promised not to pursue other crimes Mr. Weisselberg may have committed in connection with his Trump Organization employment. Perjury is a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison in New York state but prosecutors cited Mr. Weisselberg’s age and willingness to admit to wrongdoing in agreeing to a five-month sentence.
This will be Mr. Weisselberg’s second time being sentenced to New York’s Riker’s Island. He was previously sentenced for tax crimes and released early after 99 days.
The criminal case is being prosecuted by the Manhattan District Attorney, and the civil fraud case was brought by the New York Attorney General.
The district attorney has charged President Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records, in connection with an alleged payment scheme to kill negative news stories during the 2016 presidential election cycle. Michael Cohen, a key witness in the case who alleges President Trump paid him for bribes made on his behalf and disguised the payments as attorneys fees, had claimed Mr. Weisselberg was involved in those payments as well.
Perjury in Civil Case
In court filings in the civil case, attorneys with the New York Attorney General’s office said they did not know this deal was being negotiated and urged the court to compel the defense for information. Defense attorneys pushed back, saying they had no knowledge of Mr. Weisselberg lying under oath.
Mr. Weisselberg subsequently filed a change in representation, no longer sharing legal counsel with President Trump.
The attorney general recently asked the court to investigate the perjury matter, without explaining whether the state was seeking a change in judgment, which was entered in February.
Attorneys for President Trump criticized the attorney general for making the request through improper channels and cast aspersions on the perjury plea.
“To be clear, counsel for Defendants have no ‘knowledge’ that Mr. Weisselberg made false statements during the trial; to the contrary, many believe that Mr. Weisselberg only made such admissions because he was being threatened with life in prison,” defense attorneys claimed.
Mr. Weisselberg had testified about the famously incorrectly reported square footage and valuation of the Trump Tower triplex penthouse, President Trump’s residence. Correspondence between Mr. Weisselberg and others revealed that he had provided an incorrect figure of 30,000 square feet, three times its actual size, even though he possessed documentation that the real size was 10,996 square feet.
Forbes magazine published an article that cited the incorrect size and value of the penthouse and later published another article after reviewing city records that showed the correct square footage and Mr. Weisselberg’s alleged unwillingness to correct Trump Organization statements.
In discovery depositions, Mr. Weisselberg also “intentionally swore falsely by denying his involvement in determining what numbers when into valuing properties,” according to the plea, even when that wasn’t what he was asked. In truth, he was “significantly involved” in determining how values were calculated for the financial statements.
During testimony, Mr. Weisselberg cast the misrepresentations as a mistake, and was evasive when questioned about the penthouse, saying “I never focused on the triplex,” and that he “never thought about that apartment.”
New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron found the testimony “highly unreliable.”
In the guilty plea, Mr. Weisselberg affirms that he knew the triplex’s true size before he had represented it incorrectly on Trump Organization statements, and knew this when he was present while Donald Trump gave an interview in 2015 incorrectly stating the triplex was 30,000 square feet.
Mr. Weisselberg was not a defense witness in the case but one of the defendants. He was ordered by Justice Engoron to pay $1 million and is appealing the judgment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
