A New York judge determined that the Trump organization should pay $1.6 million in fines following the 15-year tax fraud scheme that many top executives were using.
Two subsidiaries of the Trump organization, Trump Corp. and Trump Payroll Corp., were convicted last month on 17 counts. Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass had even gone as far as to urge Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan to find the maximum amount possible under the law in order to punish the conduct that he deemed as “egregious.”
Some of the convictions that the companies were charged under include conspiracy, criminal tax fraud, and falsifying business records. In regards to this specifically, Steinglass said that the magnitude of fraud calls and falsified business records are enough to warrant the maximum penalty possible because of the number of years the fraud scheme was running.
The judge ended up fining Trump Corp. $810,000 and Trump Payroll $800,000, agreeing with Steinglass’ perspective.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg who was the one to hand down the sentence said that while corporations can’t serve time, that does not mean they should be allowed to get away with everything that they were doing.
The only person to have currently been charged under the scheme is the company’s former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg. In August 2022, Weisselberg pleaded guilty and subsequently became the prosecution’s key witness during the case, providing in depth information about the way that top employees and the company managed to avoid taxation.
