New York court finds Trump Organization guilty of tax fraud

The district attorney of Manhattan, Alvin Bragg (center), appears before the media after the ruling against the Trump Organization was announced, this Tuesday in New York.MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO (Getty Images via AFP)

It has taken more than three years, which has lasted a criminal investigation by the Manhattan prosecutor's office with comings and goings.

But the abundant suspicions about irregularities in the Trump Organization have been confirmed this Tuesday, when a court has ruled that the great real estate emporium of former Republican president Donald Trump developed for 15 years a black payment system that defrauded millions of dollars from the treasury. , incurring in a continuous practice of tax fraud.

The court ruling tarnishes the efforts of the magnate in his campaign to return to the White House in 2024, although he had not been charged in the case.

In fits and starts, with resounding resignations from investigators due to the deadlock in which the process seemed to have entered at times, the investigation launched in 2018 by the former Manhattan prosecutor, Democrat Cyrus Vance Jr., and inherited by the current one, Alvin Bragg, has been substantiated in a conviction that will only result in fines for the Trump Organization, a real estate conglomerate that operates hotels, golf courses and other real estate properties around the world.

The judge presiding over the court will be in charge of determining the amount of the sanction.

The company has pleaded not guilty, despite the assumption of guilt by Trump's chief financial officer and right-hand man for decades, Allen Weisselberg, who has resisted pressure from prosecutors to

his boss in the plot.

Even if the amount of the fine is affordable for a billion-dollar emporium like Trump's, conviction by a jury could complicate his leeway in doing business with lenders, banks and partners.

The case was based on allegations that the Trump Organization, based on New York's Fifth Avenue, paid in-kind expenses, such as high-end and luxury car rentals, to top executives at the firm, leading them all. they Weisselberg, who did not declare that income, in addition to paying them premiums as if they were self-employed.

"The benefit offer [in black] was designed to keep their top executives happy and to ensure their loyalty," prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told jurors during closing arguments last Friday.

In fact, since the deliberations of the jury started this Monday, he was surprised by the speed of the sentence, but not by its content.

The court finds the Trump Organization guilty of nine counts, including fraud, conspiracy to commit grand theft, tax fraud, forgery of business documents and other related charges.

Weisselberg, 75, testified as a star witness as part of a deal with prosecutors that will allow him to spend no more than five months in jail despite pleading guilty.

The Trump Organization argued that Weisselberg developed the scheme on his behalf, to benefit himself.

He is still paid by the company in exchange for not implicating his boss and declared on his day that he received more than a million dollars in salary and bonus payments.

In parallel to the criminal case instituted by the Manhattan prosecutor's office, the Trump Organization faces another parallel for fraud presented by the New York State Attorney General, Letitia James, also a Democrat, like her colleague Bragg.

Hence, Trump has rejected the accusations in both cases, considering them politically motivated by his rivals.

In her appearance before James, in August, the tycoon accepted her right not to testify so as not to incriminate himself.

Despite the relative damage that the fine may cause to Trump's finances, the culpability of the ruling published today adds to a panoply of ongoing investigations, in which the former Republican president is risking his political credit.

The FBI investigation for taking confidential documents from the White House, known as

-name of your residence in Florida from where they were seized by the agents-;

the summons to testify by the congressional committee investigating his role in the assault on the Capitol in January 2021 and, finally, his attempts to reverse the result of the presidential elections of November 2020 in the State of Georgia, of which However, he is not formally accused, they join a perfect judicial storm against the former president, when he aspires to evict Joe Biden from the White House within two years.

In addition, the Supreme Court gave the green light for the delivery of Trump's tax returns to a congressional committee -he has been the only president who refused to do so during his stay in the White House-, while the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, It appointed a special super-prosecutor for two of the cases, that of the assault on the Capitol and the retention of classified documents in Mar-a-Lago.

Follow all the international information on