By Karen Freifeld
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s namesake company and its chief financial officer are expected to be hit with criminal charges on Thursday by prosecutors in Manhattan, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
Charges by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance are expected to focus on whether Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg and other officials received perks and benefits such as rent-free apartments and leased cars without reporting them properly on their tax returns, people familiar with the probe have said.
The person familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Weisselberg and the company are expected to be arraigned on an indictment on Thursday.
Trump’s lawyer Ronald Fischetti told Reuters on Monday that prosecutors suggested that the charges would be related to taxes and fringe benefits and that Trump himself would not be charged in the indictment.
“This will be their first blow,” Fischetti said of the prosecutors, adding that in a meeting with them last week they said they were still pursuing their investigation.
Mary Mulligan, a lawyer for Weisselberg, declined to comment on possible charges. Vance’s office also declined to comment. Lawyers for the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump, during a trip on Wednesday to Weslaco, Texas near the Mexican border to criticize President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, did not respond to questions shouted by reporters about the criminal charges.
In a statement on Monday, Trump called prosecutors biased and said his company’s actions were “in no way a crime.”
The Trump Organization could face fines and other penalties if convicted.
Charges also could increase pressure on Weisselberg to cooperate with prosecutors, which he has resisted. Weisselberg is a close Trump confidant, making his cooperation potentially crucial to any future case against the former president.
Court filings, public records and subpoenaed documents have shown that Weisselberg and his son Barry have received perks and gifts potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, including many benefits related to real estate.
The case could be charged as a scheme by the company to pay people off the books in order to hide assets over many years.
One possible charge would be “scheme to defraud,” according to New York attorney Marc Scholl, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan DA’s office.
“‘Scheme to defraud’ is a crime that allows the prosecution to detail a narrative in the indictment describing the criminal conduct and how it originated, no matter how long ago the crime started,” Scholl said.
Prosecutors in Vance’s office accelerated their focus on the Trump Organization’s use of perks and benefits last fall. The office of New York state Attorney General Letitia James, which had also been looking into the Trump Organization, said in May that its probe had turned into a criminal investigation and that it had joined forces with Vance’s office.
Vance, a Democrat, has in his nearly three-year-old investigation examined an array of potential wrongdoing, including whether Trump’s company manipulated the value of its real estate to reduce its taxes and secure favorable loan terms.
Prior to entering the White House in 2017, Trump put his company into a trust overseen by his adult sons and Weisselberg, who has maintained tight control over its finances. It is unclear what role Trump now has at the company.
The case could also complicate Trump’s political future, as he flirts with a possible 2024 White House run.
Jennifer Weisselberg, the former wife of Barry Weisselberg, has met with prosecutors half a dozen times.
Her lawyer Duncan Levin told Reuters on Wednesday that “over the past half year, Jen has been cooperating with prosecutors. We have turned over a mountain of evidence to them to support these charges. We’re very gratified the DA’s office is moving forward with these charges.”
In an interview with MSNBC, Jennifer Weisselberg said she would be prepared to testify while adding: “My documents at this time are witnesses themselves. They are being used, and they’re being walked through the grand jury panel.”
“We’ve been going through questions pertaining to compensation, perks and taxes just to review how to … inform a grand jury,” she added.
(Reporting by Lisa Lambert and Tim Ahmann in Washington, and Karen Freifeld and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Will Dunham and Noeleen Walder)
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