Trump Organization hit with $1.6 million in fines for tax fraud conviction
NEW YORK – Two Trump Organization entities were slapped with $1.6 million in fines Friday – the price of committing years of tax fraud.
The Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corporation were sentenced to pay the hefty sum in Manhattan Supreme Court. The companies were found guilty of tax fraud, scheming to defraud, and other related charges on Dec. 6.
“We all know that even the maximum fines constitute a tiny portion of the overall revenue of the Trump Organization,” Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said.
The penalties amount to the maximum fines Judge Juan Merchan could impose under New York law.
The yearslong fraud saw the company shower senior executives with lavish work benefits disguised from the tax man.
Rent-free luxury apartments with Hudson River views, Mercedes Benz car leases, and holiday home furniture were among the perks of being a Trump Organization executive, jurors heard during the six-week trial.
The Trump Corporation faced fines totaling $810,000 and Trump Payroll Corp., was was ordered to pay $800,000.
Trump wasn’t charged in the case, but Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg hasn’t officially said he won’t be. The office has been conducting an expansive probe into the former president for three years.
Prosecutors pointed the finger at Trump toward the trial’s end.
“This whole narrative that Donald Trump was blissfully ignorant is just not real,” Steinglass said in his summation.
The Trump Organization is separately charged in a major civil action lawsuit brought in September by the New York attorney general.
In that case, Attorney General Letitia James demands $250 million. She accuses the company of misrepresenting the value of Trump Organization assets like skyscrapers and golf courses to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars to score better loan deals and tax breaks.
James says Trump exaggerated his own net worth by “billions.”
The sentencing comes days after the company’s long-serving chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg was sent behind bars for five months. His sentencing also marked his last day as an employee of the Trump family after almost half a century.
Citing Weisselberg’s “offensive” crimes “driven entirely by greed,” Merchan said he would have imposed a much steeper sentence had he not been bound by his promise last August when the CFO took a plea deal.