The Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, pleaded not guilty Thursday to tax charges in a Manhattan court after a grand jury indicted him and the Trump Organization in a case over its business dealings, NBC News reports.
Weisselberg was charged with grand larceny in the 2nd degree, along with other charges and entered a plea of “not guilty.” “He will fight these charges in court,” his lawyers, Mary Mulligan and Bryan Skarlatos, said in a statement before the arraignment.
The Trump Organization also pleaded not guilty.
In the indictment that was unsealed Thursday afternoon, prosecutors described a years-long scheme to compensate executives “off the books” to avoid taxes.
“To put it bluntly, this was a sweeping and audacious illegal payments scheme,” said Carey Dunne, general counsel for the Manhattan district attorney, the New York Times reports.
In a statement on Thursday a spokesperson for the Trump Organization dismissed the charges as a politically motivated.
“Allen Weisselberg is a loving and devoted husband, father and grandfather who has worked at the Trump Organization for 48 years. He is now being used by the Manhattan District Attorney as a pawn in a scorched earth attempt to harm the former President,” the spokesperson said. “The District Attorney is bringing a criminal prosecution involving employee benefits that neither the IRS nor any other District Attorney would ever think of bringing. This is not justice; this is politics.”
