Last month, in a separate case, longtime Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to charges of running a yearslong scheme to avoid paying taxes on nearly $2 million in income, including fringe benefits like rent, luxury cars and private school tuition for his grandchildren.
He also agreed to testify against the Trump Organization when the company goes on trial in connection with the alleged compensation scheme beginning in October. The plea agreement contains no requirement for him to cooperate in the related criminal case against Trump himself.
abcnews.go.com/...
New York attorney general Letitia James has said her office is set to make a “major announcement” within hours.
The state’s top lawyer has rejected at least one settlement offer from former president Donald Trump, who her office has been investigating for the past three years.
But she has given no details of why she called the press conference for 10.30am ET, to which press have been invited.
During the course of her probe into the Trump Organization, Ms James has alleged that Mr Trump inflated or devalued the value of his properties in paperwork to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks or bank loans.
www.independent.co.uk/...
Attorney General Letitia James has rejected at least one settlement offer from former President Donald Trump, The New York Times reported Thursday.
The unsuccessful negotiations, confirmed by Insider through one independent source, may clear the way for her long-expected fraud lawsuit against the Trump Organization, the former president's $3 billion real-estate and golf-resort company, which is headquartered in Manhattan.
Barring any last-minute settlement deal, James is considering suing not only Trump but also at least one of his adult children, The Times reported.
Eric Trump, who signed many of the documents and negotiated some of the deals the attorney general is eyeing, has been described in court papers and proceedings as a target of James' inquiry, as has his father.
Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have, like Eric Trump, served as executive vice presidents of their father's company, but they have both been treated as witnesses in the inquiry.
www.businessinsider.com/...
The preliminary settlement talks between Ms. James’s office and Mr. Trump’s lawyers began early this summer and have yet to gather much momentum, the people with knowledge of the matter said. Ms. James’s office turned down the offer from Mr. Trump’s lawyers, though they are expected to continue to try to negotiate in the coming days.
It is common for attorneys general to entertain settlement negotiations both before and after filing lawsuits.
A deal-breaker for Mr. Trump would be if Ms. James sought to shut down his business operations in New York. But in the same podcast appearance, Ms. James suggested that she might stop short of seeking what is sometimes called the “corporate death penalty,” in which a judge orders the dissolution of a company.
“I don’t want to go that far,” Ms. James said. All she wanted to do, she added, was to ensure that Mr. Trump and his company understood that they could not use fraudulent valuations in the future. “He needs to be held accountable,” she said. “Him and his corporation.”
www.nytimes.com/…