The former chief financial officer for the Trump Organization is looking at jail time after he admitted to lying under oath about allegations that former president Donald Trump lied to banks and insurance companies.
On Monday, former Trump Organization CFO Allen Wesselberg, 76, admitted that he had perjured himself when testifying to the New York attorney general about his knowledge of the size and value of Trump’s apartment. Trump allegedly overstated the size of the apartment for years on financial statements given to banks and insurance companies in order to artificially inflate its value.
Weisselberg was originally charged with five counts of perjury, according to a CNN report. However, in a deal with prosecutors, he pled guilty to two felony counts related to a deposition he gave to the state attorney general’s office in 2020.
Weisselberg also admitted to giving false testimony during Trump’s civil fraud trial last fall, although he did not plead guilty to those charges, CNN reported. While that false testimony could be considered a violation of Weisselberg’s parole for his 2022 tax fraud conviction, prosecutors agreed that he would not be sentenced for it.
However, Weisselberg is looking at five months in prison for the two counts he has pled guilty to.
Prosecutor Gary Fishman said that his office wasn’t recommending more than five months of incarceration due to Weisselberg’s age, CNN reported. However, Fishman said that some prison time was necessary because perjury “tears at the very fabric” of the justice system.
The five-month term is the same as the sentence handed down after Weisselberg’s 2022 guilty plea. In that case, he ended up serving about 100 days, CNN reported.
At his Monday arraignment, Weisselberg admitted that he lied when he testified in 2020 that he had never heard Trump lie about the size of his apartment in a 2015 Forbes interview. Weisselberg acknowledged in court that he was present during the interview.
Weisselberg also admitted to lying in a 2023 deposition when he testified that he wasn’t heavily involved in the creation of Trump’s inflated financial statements.
“These statements were false as Weisselberg was significantly involved in determining what methodology and numbers were used to value the properties in the [statements of financial condition],” prosecutors said in a court filing.
“It is a crime to lie in depositions and at trial, plain and simple,” a spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg told CNN. The spokesperson said that Weisselberg is “being held responsible for his conduct.”
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