A longtime executive for former president Donald Trump, Allen Weisselberg, is expected to be sent to New York’s notorious Rikers Island jail after being sentenced on Tuesday for helping engineer a 15-year tax fraud scheme at Trump’s real estate company.
Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, will be sent to the notorious prison in New York soon.
Weisselberg pleaded guilty in August, admitting that from 2005 to 2017 he and other executives received bonuses and perks that saved the company and themselves money.
The sentence is expected to last for five months in the prison. Weisselberg is expected to have to pay nearly $2 million in taxes, penalties, and interest.
Furthermore, the Trump loyalist will have to testify at the criminal trial of the Trump Organization, which was convicted on all counts it faced.
Weisselberg was the star government witness against his employer. He said Trump signed bonus and tuition checks and other documents that were at the center of the prosecutor’s case, but claimed Trump was not in on the tax fraud scheme.
As expected, Weisselberg remained loyal even while under immense pressure as the prosecution’s star witness.
The trial provided a fascinating insight into the relationship between the loyal Weisselberg and his employer Trump, as well as prosecutors’ efforts to try to turn one against the other by threatening Weisselberg with a lengthy sentence at New York’s notorious Rikers Island prison.
He is believed to have been offered a reduced sentence in return for his testimony in this trial as prosecutors focused on Trump.
Rikers Island is known for violence, drugs, and corruption. Nineteen inmates there died last year. Many convicts in New York City facing one year or less behind bars head to Rikers Island, which lies between the New York City boroughs of Queens and the Bronx and houses more than 5,900 inmates.
Weisselberg remains a defendant in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million civil lawsuit alleging that Trump and his company inflated asset values and Trump’s net worth.
Be the first to comment