Former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg was sentenced to five months in jail for lying under oath during testimony in a civil fraud case against former President Donald Trump.
Judge Laurie Peterson presided over the brief sentencing, lasting about five minutes on April 10.
Prosecutors promised to not pursue other crimes that Mr. Weisselberg may have committed in connection with his Trump Organization employment. Perjury is a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison in New York state, but prosecutors cited his age and willingness to admit to wrongdoing in agreeing to a five-month sentence.
This will be his second time being sentenced to New York’s Riker’s Island. He was previously sentenced for tax crimes and released early after 99 days.
The criminal case is being prosecuted by the Manhattan district attorney, and the civil fraud case was brought by the New York attorney general.
Perjury in Civil Case
In court filings in the civil case, attorneys with the New York attorney general’s office said they did not know this deal was being negotiated and urged the court to compel the defense for information. Defense attorneys pushed back, saying they had no knowledge of Mr. Weisselberg’s lying under oath.He subsequently filed a change in representation, no longer sharing legal counsel with President Trump.
Mr. Weisselberg had testified about the famously incorrectly reported square footage and valuation of the Trump Tower triplex penthouse, President Trump’s residence. Correspondence between Mr. Weisselberg and others revealed that he had provided an incorrect figure of 30,000 square feet, three times its actual size, even though he possessed documentation that the real size was 10,996 square feet.
Forbes magazine published an article that cited the incorrect size and value of the penthouse and later published another article after reviewing city records that showed the correct square footage and Mr. Weisselberg’s alleged unwillingness to correct Trump Organization statements.
In discovery depositions, Mr. Weisselberg also “intentionally swore falsely by denying his involvement in determining what numbers [went] into valuing properties,” according to the plea, even when that wasn’t what he was asked. In truth, he was “significantly involved” in determining how values were calculated for the financial statements.
During testimony, he cast the misrepresentations as a mistake and was evasive when questioned about the penthouse, saying that he “never focused on the triplex” and “never thought about that apartment.”
New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron found the testimony “highly unreliable.”
In the guilty plea, Mr. Weisselberg affirmed that he knew the triplex’s true size before he had represented it incorrectly on Trump Organization statements and that he knew this when he was present while Mr. Trump gave an interview in 2015 incorrectly stating the triplex was 30,000 square feet.
Mr. Weisselberg was not a defense witness in the case but one of the defendants. He was ordered by Justice Engoron to pay $1 million and is appealing the judgment.
