Allen Weisselberg, a former Trump CFO, enters a guilty plea to perjury in the former president’s civil fraud case

In relation to his evidence in the former president’s civil fraud case, Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of Donald Trump’s business, entered a guilty plea on Monday in New York for lying. Weisselberg, 76, entered a guilty plea to two charges of perjury and was given a five-month prison sentence. This would be Weisselberg’s second jail term, having served 100 days in a separate tax fraud case last year.

In addition to admitting, without entering a plea, to lying on the witness stand at the former president’s civil fraud trial last autumn, he also acknowledged in court on Monday that he had made the admission during his July 2020 deposition in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit against Trump.

In the case involving claims that Trump misrepresented his wealth on financial documents provided to banks and insurance companies, prosecutors charged Weisselberg with lying under oath. Seth Rosenberg, Allen Weisselberg’s attorney, said in a statement that his client “looks forward to putting this situation behind him.”

Judge Arthur Engoron, who presided over the fraud trial, directed counsel to disclose information pertaining to the New York Times article that revealed Weisselberg was in talks to enter a guilty plea to perjury last month.

Trump is contesting Engoron’s ruling, which mandated that he pay over $454 million in penalties and interest for providing false information about the value of his assets on years’ worth of financial documents.

Weeks before Trump is set to go on trial for other charges of fabricating financial documents, Weisselberg files a new criminal lawsuit. In that lawsuit, it is alleged that Trump fabricated business documents in order to conceal payments made for hush money during the 2016 campaign, which were intended to dispel reports of his extramarital affairs. Trump has entered a not-guilty plea and refutes any misconduct.

Weisselberg was allegedly involved in the payments’ coordination, according to former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen. Despite this, Weisselberg has not been prosecuted in this case, and neither the prosecution nor Trump’s attorneys have announced they would call him a witness. The start of the trial is set for March 25.

The criminal prosecution that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed against Trump last year is unrelated to Weisselberg’s case.

Weisselberg was previously incarcerated for 100 days last year after entering a guilty plea to tax evasion on $1.7 million in unreported earnings from the Trump Organization. He’s on probation right now. He had no criminal history before then.

In April, he departed from the infamous Rikers Island in New York City, just after Trump was charged with a crime relating to hush money in New York.

Weisselberg was obligated by that plea agreement to appear as a prosecution witness in the event that the Trump Organization was tried for assisting executives in avoiding paying taxes. With great caution, he presented the jury with the details of his own tax evasion, being careful not to name Trump in the process and informing them that his employer was not aware of the plan.