Criminal consequences came again for someone in Donald Trump’s orbit who isn’t Donald Trump. Allen Weisselberg was sentenced Wednesday to five months in jail after pleading guilty to committing perjury in the Trump civil fraud case.
Incredibly, this will be the second Trump-related jail stint for the 76-year-old. The former Trump Organization chief financial officer served time last year for tax fraud stemming from his tenure at the company.
Trump himself is on the precipice of criminal consequences, at the hands of the same Manhattan district attorney’s office that prosecuted Weisselberg. The former president’s hush money trial is set for jury selection Monday. A key prosecution witness against Trump is expected to be Michael Cohen, another figure in the Trump world who went to prison (related to the hush money scheme) while Trump did not.
If nothing else, Weisselberg’s latest prosecution shows that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg won’t hesitate to prosecute Team Trump figures who lie for their boss. The impact of Weisselberg’s perjury case on the hush money case may be indirect. He isn’t expected to cooperate against Trump. If the defense were to call him as a witness on Trump’s behalf, having landed a fresh perjury conviction in a Trump-related matter could further damage his credibility with the jury. If nothing else, Weisselberg’s latest prosecution shows that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg won’t hesitate to prosecute Team Trump figures who lie for their boss.In the hush money case, Cohen paid adult film star Stormy Daniels just ahead of the 2016 presidential election, to keep her quiet about an earlier affair she said she had with Trump. Weisselberg reportedly helped arrange Cohen’s reimbursement. Trump, who’s charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records for allegedly trying to cover up the scheme, has pleaded not guilty and denied the affair. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for weekly updates on the top legal stories, including news from the Supreme Court, the Donald Trump cases and more.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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