By Kara Scannell, Lauren del Valle and Sabrina Souza | CNN
Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg was charged on Monday with five counts of perjury relating to testimony he gave during the civil fraud trial of former President Donald Trump regarding the size of the Trump Tower triplex apartment and dealings he had with an insurer.
Under a deal with prosecutors, Weisselberg, a longtime confidant of Trump’s, has agreed to plead guilty to two counts, both relating to testimony he gave during a 2020 deposition with the attorney general’s office.
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He is not pleading guilty to counts related to the testimony he gave last year during a civil fraud trial when he was on supervised release but he will admit the testimony was false.
Under the terms of the deal with prosecutors, Weisselberg will be sentenced to five months in jail – a deal identical to the prior arrangement he made. In the previous case he served about 100 days.
Earlier Monday, Weisselberg declined to comment to CNN. Seth Rosenberg, an attorney for Weisselberg, also declined to comment, as did a spokesperson for District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Weisselberg had been in plea talks with Manhattan prosecutors for several weeks relating to his testimony taken during the New York attorney general’s civil investigation into the former president in 2020 and when he testified last year, several people familiar with the investigation said.
As part of the plea talks, Weisselberg was not expected to turn on Trump and will not testify against him at the New York criminal hush money case scheduled to start later this month, the people said.
Trump is indicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment and reimbursement before the 2016 presidential election. Weisselberg was central to the financial dealings but neither prosecutors nor Trump’s attorneys said they plan to call him as a witness. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
It is the second guilty plea by Weisselberg, who in 2022 pleaded guilty to 15 counts of tax fraud and testified in the trial of two Trump Org. entities. Weisselberg was credited with giving truthful testimony and the entities were convicted and fined. The judge sentenced Weisselberg to five months in jail and supervised release. He served about 100 days in Rikers Island jail.
The latest charges are a blow personally for Weisselberg, who is in his late 70s with medical issues. Last month, the New York state judge overseeing the attorney general’s civil case found Weisselberg liable for fraud and ordered him to pay $1 million plus interest, roughly half of the $2 million severance he received from the Trump Org.
In the hush money case, Weisselberg helped arrange the reimbursement to Michael Cohen, the ex-president’s former lawyer, who advanced $130,000 to Stormy Daniels to stop her from going public about an affair with Trump. Trump has denied the affair.
The payment initially drew scrutiny of federal prosecutors who gave Weisselberg limited immunity for his testimony before a federal grand jury. Prosecutors moved forward with charges against Cohen.
“Because the Trump Organization is a privately held company, had I remained silent and stayed on Donald’s desired messaging, none of this would have been exposed,” Cohen told CNN. Cohen was investigated by federal prosecutors and pleaded guilty to multiple charges in 2018. He did not cooperate with the federal investigation. However, he did cooperate with the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation and is expected to testify against Trump at the trial later this month.
The-CNN-Wire
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