Donald Trump’s company and its longtime finance chief were charged Thursday in what prosecutors called a “sweeping and audacious” tax fraud scheme in which they collected more than $1.7 million in off-the-books compensation, including apartment rent, car payments, and school tuition.
Trump himself was not charged with any wrongdoing, but prosecutors noted he signed some of the checks at the case centre. And one top prosecutor said the 15-year scheme was “orchestrated by the most senior executives” at the Trump Organization. It is the first criminal case to come out of the New York authority’s two-year investigation into Former President Trump’s business dealings.
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According to the indictment, from 2005 through this year, the Trump Organization and Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg cheated tax authorities by planning to pay senior executives off the books through lucrative fringe benefits and other means. Weisselberg alone was accused of defrauding the federal government, state, and city of more than $900,000 in unpaid taxes and undeserved tax refunds. The most severe charge against Weisselberg, grand theft, carries five to 15 years in prison. The tax fraud charges against the company are punishable by a fine of $250,000. In a statement, Trump faulted the case as a “political Witch Hunt by the Radical Left Democrats.” Weisselberg’s lawyers said he would “fight these charges.”