Tag Archives: NRLPA:OCRIM

US

Ex-FBI official worked for sanctioned Russian oligarch, prosecutors say

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NEW YORK, Jan 23 (Reuters) – A former top FBI official was charged on Monday with working for sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, as U.S. prosecutors ramp up efforts to enforce sanctions on Russian officials and police their alleged enablers.

Charles McGonigal, who led the FBI’s counterintelligence division in New York before retiring in 2018, pleaded not guilty to four criminal counts including sanctions violations and money laundering at a hearing in Manhattan federal court.

He was released on $500,000 bond, following his arrest over the weekend.

Prosecutors said McGonigal, 54, in 2021 received concealed payments from Deripaska, who was sanctioned in 2018, in exchange for investigating a rival oligarch.

McGonigal was also charged with unsuccessfully pushing in 2019 to lift sanctions against Deripaska.

Sanctions “must be enforced equally against all U.S. citizens in order to be successful,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge Michael Driscoll said in a statement. “There are no exceptions for anyone, including a former FBI official.”

Separately on Monday, federal prosecutors in Washington said McGonigal received $225,000 in cash from a former member of Albania’s intelligence service, who had been a source in an investigation into foreign political lobbying that McGonigal was supervising.

McGonigal faces nine counts in that case, including making false statements to conceal from the FBI the nature of his relationship with the person.

“This is obviously a distressing day for Mr McGonigal and his family,” the defendant’s lawyer Seth DuCharme told reporters after the Manhattan hearing. “We’ll review the evidence, we’ll closely scrutinize it, and we have a lot of confidence in Mr McGonigal.”

Deripaska, the founder of Russian aluminum company Rusal (RUAL.MM), was among two dozen Russian oligarchs and government officials blacklisted by Washington in 2018 in reaction to Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

He and the Kremlin have denied any election interference.

Also charged in the Manhattan case was Sergey Shestakov, a former Soviet diplomat who later became an American citizen and Russian language interpreter for U.S. courts and government agencies.

Prosecutors said Shestakov he worked with McGonigal to help Deripaska, and made false statements to investigators.

Shestakov pleaded not guilty on Monday and was released on $200,000 bond.

The enforcement of sanctions are part of U.S. efforts to pressure Moscow to stop its war in Ukraine, which the Kremlin calls a “special military operation.”

Deripaska was charged last September with violating the sanctions against him by arranging to have his children born in the United States.

The following month, British businessman Graham Bonham-Carter was charged with conspiring to violate sanctions by trying to move Deripaska’s artwork out of the United States.

Deripaska is at large, and Bonham-Carter is contesting extradition to the United States.

Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien, Bill Berkrot, Jonathan Oatis and Marguerita Choy

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Luc Cohen

Thomson Reuters

Reports on the New York federal courts. Previously worked as a correspondent in Venezuela and Argentina.

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Criminal justice postgrad charged with murdering 4 Idaho university students

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Dec 30 (Reuters) – A grad student seeking a criminal justice degree from Washington State University has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students more than six weeks ago, officials said on Friday.

Police in eastern Pennsylvania acting on a fugitive arrest warrant took Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, into custody on Thursday night, according to James Fry, chief of police in Moscow, Idaho, where the University of Idaho campus is located. Fry said Kohberger resides in Pennsylvania.

Kohberger was arraigned in Pennsylvania and remained jailed without bond awaiting a hearing on Tuesday to determine whether he will waive extradition and return voluntarily to Idaho to face charges in the high-profile case, said Latah County, Idaho, prosecutor Bill Thompson.

Thompson said Kohberger was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and felony burglary in a crime that unnerved the small college town in Idaho’s northwest panhandle where the four victims – three women and a man in their early 20s – were slain.

The four were all found fatally stabbed on the morning of Nov. 13 inside the off-campus house where the three women lived, two of them staying in one room, and one sharing her room with the fourth victim, her boyfriend.

Two other female roommates in the house at the time were unharmed, apparently sleeping through the killings. Police said the cellphone of one of the survivors was used to call emergency-911 when the bodies were first discovered.

“This is not the end of this investigation. In fact it is a new beginning,” Thompson told a news conference.

The victims – identified as Ethan Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Avondale, Arizona; Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho – all suffered multiple stab wounds, Fry said. Some of the bodies also showed defensive wounds, Fry said, suggesting they had tried to fend off their attacker.

NIGHT OUT BEFORE KILLINGS

[1/5] The Sigma Chi fraternity house, where victim Ethan Chapin was a member, is pictured after four University of Idaho students were found killed in their residence on November 13 in Moscow, Idaho, U.S., November 30, 2022. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson

Chapin and his girlfriend, Kernodle, had attended a fraternity party the night before, while Mogen and Goncalves, who were best friends, had visited a local bar and food truck. Both pairs returned to the house shortly before 2 a.m. The two other roommates had gotten home about an hour earlier.

Authorities say they believe the slayings occurred between 3 and 4 a.m. on Nov. 13.

The victims appeared to have been killed with a knife or some other “edged” weapon, police have said. Fry said the murder weapon has not been recovered, though police had found a car they were searching for in connection with the killings.

Authorities said Kohberger was a graduate student at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman, Washington, about 10 miles from the University of Idaho campus.

WSU issued a statement on Friday saying its police department and Idaho law enforcement officers searched both Kohberger’s apartment residence and his office on campus.

It said Kohberger “had completed his first semester as a PhD student in WSU’s criminal justice program earlier this month,” suggesting he had remained on campus, just miles away from the crime scene across the Idaho state line, for a number of weeks before returning to Pennsylvania.

Asked at the press conference in Moscow whether authorities there were seeking additional suspects, Fry said, “We have an individual in custody who committed these horrible crimes, and I do believe our community is safe.”

Fry said his department had received more than 19,000 tips from the public and had conducted more than 300 interviews as part of its investigation, assisted by state police and the FBI. He and Thompson urged anyone who knew anything about the accused killer to come forward.

He declined to offer a possible motive for the crime or to give any details about the investigation, such as how authorities traced Kohberger to Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, a small community in the Pocono Mountains resort region about 90 miles north of Philadelphia, where he was arrested.

Thompson said more details would emerge publicly from a probable-cause affidavit that summarizes the factual basis for the charges but remains under court seal until the suspect is physically back in Idaho to be served his arrest warrant.

Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by David Gregorio and Neil Fullick

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Sam Bankman-Fried to enter plea in FTX fraud case

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NEW YORK, Dec 28 (Reuters) – Sam Bankman-Fried is expected to enter a plea next week to criminal charges he defrauded investors and looted billions of dollars in customer funds at his failed FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

The 30-year-old is expected to be arraigned on the afternoon of Jan. 3, 2023, before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan federal court, court records on Wednesday showed.

Kaplan was assigned to the case on Tuesday, after the original judge recused herself because her husband’s law firm had advised FTX before its collapse.

Prosecutors have accused Bankman-Fried of engaging in a years-long “fraud of epic proportions,” by using customer deposits to support his Alameda Research hedge fund firm, buy real estate and make political contributions.

Bankman-Fried is charged with two counts of wire fraud and six counts of conspiracy, including to launder money and commit campaign finance violations, and if convicted could spend decades in prison.

Before his Dec. 12 arrest, Bankman-Fried acknowledged risk-management failures at FTX, but said he did not believe he was criminally liable.

Two of his associates, former Alameda chief executive Caroline Ellison and former FTX chief technology officer Gary Wang, have pleaded guilty over their roles in FTX’s collapse and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

A lawyer for Bankman-Fried did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Bankman-Fried was released on Dec. 22 on a $250 million bond and ordered to stay with his parents in Palo Alto, California, where they teach at Stanford Law School. He is subject to electronic monitoring.

FTX filed for bankruptcy protection on Nov. 11. Its new chief executive, John Ray, told Congress on Dec. 13 that the exchange lost $8 billion of customer money while being run by “grossly inexperienced, non-sophisticated individuals.”

Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York
Editing by Matthew Lewis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Capitol riot panel’s final report sets out case to try Trump

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WASHINGTON, Dec 22 (Reuters) – The congressional panel probing the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol released its final report late on Thursday, outlining its case that former U.S. President Donald Trump should face criminal charges of inciting the deadly riot.

The House of Representatives Select Committee also made public the transcripts of a number of its interviews and witness testimonies earlier on Thursday and on Wednesday.

The report, which runs to more than 800 pages, is based on nearly 1,200 interviews over 18 months and hundreds of thousands of documents, as well as the rulings of more than 60 federal and state courts.

The report lists 17 specific findings, discusses the legal implications of actions by Trump and some of his associates and includes criminal referrals to the Justice Department of Trump and other individuals, according to an executive summary released earlier this week. It report also lists legislative recommendations to help avert another such attack.

On Monday, the committee asked federal prosecutors to charge the Republican former president with four crimes, including obstruction and insurrection, for what they said were efforts to overturn results of the November 2020 election and sparking the attack on the seat of government.

“Rather than honor his constitutional obligation to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’ President Trump instead plotted to overturn the election outcome,” the House panel had said earlier in a 160-page summary of its report.

In comments posted on his Truth Social network after the final report’s release, Trump called it “highly partisan” and a “witch hunt”. He said it failed to “study the reason for the (Jan. 6) protest, election fraud.”

The request by the Democratic-led panel to the Justice Department does not compel federal prosecutors to act, but marked the first time in history that Congress had referred a former president for criminal prosecution. Trump announced in November that he would run for president again.

Among the transcripts released on Wednesday and Thursday was one that showed a former lawyer for ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told her to “downplay” her knowledge of events leading to the Capitol riot, telling her “the less you remember, the better.”

Attorney Stefan Passantino advised Hutchinson in preparing for a February deposition before the panel to say that she could not recall certain events, she told the committee in September, according to the transcript of her testimony.

Trump gave a fiery speech to his supporters near the White House the morning of Jan. 6, and publicly chastised his vice president, Mike Pence, for not going along with his plan to reject ballots cast for Democrat Joe Biden.

The former president then waited hours to make a public statement as thousands of his supporters raged through the Capitol, assaulting police and threatening to hang Pence.

The 2020 election results were being certified by Pence and lawmakers when the Capitol was attacked after weeks of false claims by Trump that he had won that election.

Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell

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Trump will challenge NY sex abuse law in writer’s defamation lawsuit

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Dec 21 (Reuters) – Donald Trump plans to argue that a New York law allowing a writer to sue the former U.S. president over claims that he raped her decades ago is unconstitutional, according to a court filing.

Lawyers for Trump said in a filing made on Monday in Manhattan federal court that they would move to dismiss the lawsuit filed last month by E. Jean Carroll in part on grounds that the law spurred by the #MeToo movement is invalid.

Trump has denied Carroll’s claim that he raped her in a dressing room in a Bergdorf Goodman department store 27 years ago. The former Elle magazine columnist is suing Trump for defamation and battery under New York’s Adult Survivors Act.

The law created a one-year period that began last month when adult victims of alleged sexual abuse can file lawsuits that otherwise would have been barred because the cases were too old.

Trump’s lawyers in the filing said the law “is an improper ‘claim revival’ statute which violates the United States Constitution and the New York State Constitution.”

Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for Carroll, declined to comment.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in an order on Wednesday gave Trump until Feb. 23 to file a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

Carroll had sued Trump for defamation in 2019 for denying her allegations, and a trial is scheduled in that case for April.

Lawyers for Carroll have asked Kaplan to send the newer claims to trial at the same time, but Trump’s lawyers have said that would be improper.

Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by David Gregorio

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Daniel Wiessner

Thomson Reuters

Dan Wiessner (@danwiessner) reports on labor and employment and immigration law, including litigation and policy making. He can be reached at daniel.wiessner@thomsonreuters.com.

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Business

Former FTX CEO Bankman-Fried arrested in Bahamas after U.S. files charges

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Dec 12 (Reuters) – (Editor’s note: This story contains language in paragraph 18 that some readers may find offensive)

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas at the behest of U.S. prosecutors on Monday, the day before he was due to testify before Congress about the abrupt failure last month of one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges.

The arrest marks a stunning fall from grace for the 30-year-old entrepreneur widely known by his initials SBF, who rode a boom in bitcoin and other digital assets to become a billionaire many times over until FTX’s rapid demise.

The exchange, launched in 2019 and based in the Bahamas, filed for bankruptcy Nov. 11 after it struggled to raise money to stave off collapse as traders rushed to withdraw $6 billion from the platform in just 72 hours. Since then it emerged Bankman-Fried secretly used $10 billion in customer funds to prop up his trading business.

The arrest came as Bankman-Fried prepared to lash out at his former lawyers at Sullivan and Cromwell, new FTX CEO John Ray and rival exchange operator Binance at a Congressional hearing.

In the testimony, a draft copy of which was seen by Reuters, Bankman-Fried planned to say he was pressured by Sullivan and Cromwell lawyers to nominate Ray as CEO following the sudden exodus of customer funds. And when within minutes he changed his mind, following an offer of billions of dollars of fresh funding, he was told it was too late.

Bankman-Fried will now be unable to testify, according to Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who said in a statement she was surprised to hear of his arrest. Ray’s testimony will go ahead.

Bankman-Fried was arrested shortly after 6:00 pm Monday (2300 GMT) at his apartment complex, a luxury gated community called the Albany, and will appear in a magistrate court on Tuesday, Bahamian police said. The Bahamas attorney general’s office said it expects he will be extradited to the United States.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan confirmed Bankman-Fried had been arrested in the Bahamas but declined to comment on the charges.

U.S. prosecutors said they had a sealed indictment against Bankman-Fried and charges would be revealed on Tuesday. The New York Times reported he faces fraud and money laundering charges. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission separately authorized charges relating to Bankman-Fried’s violations of securities laws, the regulator said on Monday.

Bankman-Fried and his lawyer Mark Cohen did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did Sullivan and Cromwell, FTX, Ray and Binance.

Bankman-Fried has said he doesn’t think he has any criminal liability. “I didn’t ever try to commit fraud,” Bankman-Fried said in a Nov. 30 interview at the New York Times’ Dealbook Summit.

CRYPTO INDUSTRY REELING

FTX’s demise sent shockwaves through an already-battered cryptocurrency industry, which has seen a string of meltdowns this year that have taken down other key players including Voyager Digital and Celsius Network.

More trouble might be on the horizon for the industry. Reuters reported Monday that some Justice Department prosecutors believe they have gathered sufficient evidence in their long-running investigation of Binance to charge the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and some top executives.

A Binance spokesperson told Reuters for the article: “We don’t have any insight into the inner workings of the U.S. Justice Department, nor would it be appropriate for us to comment if we did.”

Bitcoin was steady at $17,150. It is down more than 60% this year.

MEA CULPA

Since the collapse of FTX, Bankman-Fried has given numerous media interviews apologizing for his mistakes and explaining what happened at the company, something that legal experts said could allow prosecutors to point to inconsistencies to undermine his credibility with a jury.

“The defense is going to be completely boxed in by the prior statements SBF has made and the very incisive questions he has answered in the press and on social media,” said criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti.

In his written testimony, Bankman-Fried repeated his mea culpa: “I would like to start by formally stating, under oath: I fucked up,” he wrote.

Then, he launched into an explanation of how things went badly at FTX and his hedge fund Alameda Research, while criticizing Sullivan and Cromwell and Ray as well as arch rival Binance for their actions as his firm imploded.

UNDER PRESSURE

Describing his decision to give up his role as CEO of FTX and appoint Ray, Bankman-Fried said he was pressured to do so by Sullivan and Cromwell and the general counsel of FTX’s U.S. unit, who he said was a former lawyer at the law firm.

Bankman-Fried said less than 10 minutes after he had signed a document at 4.30 am on Nov. 10 to make Ray the CEO of FTX, he received “a potential funding offer for billions of dollars.” Bankman-Fried said he told his counsel to rescind the CEO appointment a few minutes later but was told it was already too late to do so.

Bankman-Fried said he had since been cut off from FTX’s systems and Ray had not responded to his emails offering help or other information.

Bankman-Fried, who had become a prominent and unconventional figure known for his wild hair, t-shirts and shorts during crypto’s boom, said the fortunes of FTX and his trading firm Alameda declined rapidly this year as crypto currencies crashed amid rising interest rates.

In late 2021, he said Alameda had net asset value of more than $50 billion and manageable levels of debt. That became unsustainable as digital assets declined.

“Last year, my net worth was valued at $20b,” Bankman-Fried wrote. “Last I saw, I believe my bank account had about $100k in it.”

Reporting by Jasper Ward in Washington, Luc Cohen and Jack Queen in New York, Brian Ellsworth in Miami and Angus Berwick in London; Editing by Megan Davies, Paritosh Bansal and Lincoln Feast

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Luc Cohen

Thomson Reuters

Reports on the New York federal courts. Previously worked as a correspondent in Venezuela and Argentina.

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Ex-Theranos president Balwani sentenced to nearly 13 years for fraud

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Dec 7 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Wednesday sentenced former Theranos Inc President Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani to 12 years and 11 months in prison on charges of defrauding investors and patients of the blood testing startup led by Elizabeth Holmes, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office confirmed.

U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California, imposed the sentence on Balwani, who was convicted by a jury on two counts of conspiracy and 10 counts of fraud in July.

Prosecutors said Balwani, 57, conspired with Holmes, 38, to deceive Silicon Valley investors into believing the company had achieved miniaturized machines that could accurately run a broad array of medical diagnostic tests from a small amount of blood.

Meanwhile, the company secretly relied on traditional methods to run tests and provided patients with inaccurate results, prosecutors said.

Holmes, who started the company as a college student and became its public face, was indicted alongside Balwani, her former romantic partner, in 2018.

Davila later granted each a separate trial after Holmes said she would take the stand and testify that Balwani was abusive in their relationship. He has denied the allegations.

Holmes was convicted in January on four counts of fraud and conspiracy but acquitted of defrauding patients.

[1/3] Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, former president and chief operating officer (COO) of Theranos and ex-boyfriend of founder Elizabeth Holmes, leaves after the opening day of his federal trial for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud was postponed due to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) exposure in the courtroom in San Jose, California, U.S. March 16, 2022. REUTERS/Brittany Hosea-Small/File Photo

Davila sentenced Holmes to 11-1/4 years in prison at a hearing last month, calling Theranos a venture “dashed by untruths, misrepresentations, plain hubris and lies.”

Prosecutors subsequently argued Balwani should receive 15 years in prison, saying he knew Theranos’ tests were inaccurate from overseeing the company’s laboratory operations, and decided to “prioritize Theranos’ financial health over patients’ real health.”

The probation office had recommended a nine-year sentence.

Balwani’s attorneys asked for a sentence of probation, arguing that he sought to make the world a better place through Theranos and was not motivated by fame or greed.

Once valued at $9 billion, Theranos promised to revolutionize how patients receive diagnoses by replacing traditional labs with small machines envisioned for use in homes, drugstores and even on the battlefield.

The company collapsed after a series of Wall Street Journal articles in 2015 questioned its technology.

The case is U.S. v. Balwani, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 18-cr-00258.

Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York;
Editing by Noeleen Walder and Bill Berkrot

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Jody Godoy

Thomson Reuters

Jody Godoy reports on banking and securities law. Reach her at jody.godoy@thomsonreuters.com

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Trump Organization found guilty of tax fraud scheme

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NEW YORK, Dec 6 (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s real estate company was convicted on Tuesday of carrying out a 15-year-long criminal scheme to defraud tax authorities, adding to the legal woes facing the former U.S. president as he campaigns for the office again in 2024.

The Trump Organization – which operates hotels, golf courses, and other real estate around the world – was found guilty of paying personal expenses for top executives including former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, and issuing bonus checks to them as if they were independent contractors.

The company faces up to $1.6 million in fines after being convicted on all charges, including scheming to defraud tax authorities, conspiracy and falsifying business records. Trump was not charged in the case.

Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over the trial in state court in New York, set a sentencing date for Jan. 13.

While the fine is not expected to be material for a company of the Trump Organization’s size, the conviction could complicate its ability to do business.

Weisselberg, 75, testified as the government’s star witness as part of a plea deal that calls for a sentence of five months in jail.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office prosecuted the case, called the verdict “very just.”

“The former president’s companies now stand convicted of crimes,” Bragg said in the New York courthouse after the verdict, speaking of the Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corporation, the two units of the Trump Organization which were convicted.

Asked if he regretted not charging Trump in the case, Bragg did not respond.

He has said that the office’s investigation into Trump is continuing.

APPEAL

Alan Futerfas, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, said the company would appeal and that the criminal law governing corporate liability was vague.

“It was central to the case,” he told reporters after the verdict.

The jury deliberated for about 12 hours over two days.

[1/6] Former U.S. President Donald Trump attends a rally to support Republican candidates ahead of midterm elections, in Dayton, Ohio, U.S. November 7, 2022. REUTERS/Gaelen Morse/File Photo

The case centered on charges that the company paid personal expenses like free rent and car leases for executives including Weisselberg without reporting the income, and gave them bonuses as non-employee compensation from other Trump entities like the Mar-a-lago Club, without deducting taxes.

According to testimony during the four-week trial, Trump himself signed the bonus checks annually, paid private school tuition for Weisselberg’s grandchildren, authorized the lease for his luxury Manhattan apartment and approved a salary deduction for another executive.

“The whole narrative that Donald Trump was blissfully ignorant is just not real, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told jurors during his closing argument on Friday.

He said the “smorgasbord of benefits” was designed to keep top executives “happy and loyal.”

Republican Trump, who on Nov. 15 announced his third campaign for the presidency, said in a statement he was “disappointed” by the verdict but called the case a “Manhattan witch hunt.” Both Bragg and his predecessor who brought the charges, Cyrus Vance, are Democrats.

SEPARATE LAWSUIT

The Trump Organization separately faces a fraud lawsuit brought by New York state Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump himself is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice over his handling of sensitive government documents after he left office in January 2021 and attempts to overturn the November 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Lawyers for the Trump Organization argued that Weisselberg carried out the scheme to benefit himself, not the company. They tried to paint him as a rogue employee. Weisselberg is currently on paid leave and testified that he hopes to get another $500,000 bonus in January

Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Nov. 19. that his family got “no economic gain from the acts done by the executive.”

Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty in August to concealing $1.76 million in income from tax authorities, testified that although Trump signed checks involved, he did not conspire with him.

He said that the company saved money by paying for his rent, utilities, Mercedes-Benz car leases for him and his wife and other personal expenses rather than raising his salary, because a wage hike would have had to account for taxes.

He said Trump’s two sons – who took over the company’s operations in 2017 – gave him a raise after they knew about his tax dodge scheme.

By then, Trump was president, and the company was preparing for greater scrutiny.

“We were going through an entire cleanup process of the company to make sure that since Mr. Trump is now president everything was being done properly,” Weisselberg testified.

Reporting by Luc Cohen and Karen Freifeld in New York; additional reporting by Andrew Hofstetter in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Grant McCool

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Luc Cohen

Thomson Reuters

Reports on the New York federal courts. Previously worked as a correspondent in Venezuela and Argentina.

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Explainer: What legal problems does U.S. presidential candidate Trump face?

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Nov 15 (Reuters) – Former President Donald Trump, who on Tuesday announced he will run again for the White House in 2024, faces a series of investigations and lawsuits.

MISSING GOVERNMENT RECORDS

The U.S. Department of Justice is conducting a criminal investigation of Trump for retaining government records, including some marked as classified, after leaving office in January 2021.

The FBI seized 11,000 documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in a court-approved Aug. 8 search. About 100 documents were marked as classified, and some were designated top secret, the highest level of classification.

Trump, a Republican, has accused the Justice Department of engaging in a partisan witch hunt.

A special master, Senior U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie, is reviewing the seized documents to determine whether any are protected by executive privilege, as Trump has claimed.

Executive privilege is a legal doctrine under which a president can keep certain documents or information secret.

The Justice Department has asked a federal appeals court to end that review and restore its access to unclassified materials taken in the search, arguing that both measures are hindering the criminal investigation.

NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL CIVIL LAWSUIT

New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a civil lawsuit filed in September that her office uncovered more than 200 examples of misleading asset valuations by Trump and the Trump Organization between 2011 and 2021.

James, a Democrat, accused Trump of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to obtain lower interest rates on loans and get better insurance coverage.

A New York judge ordered that an independent monitor be appointed to oversee the Trump Organization before the case goes to trial.

James is seeking to permanently bar Trump and his children Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka Trump from running companies in New York state, and to prevent them and his company from buying new properties and taking out new loans in the state for five years.

James also wants the defendants to hand over about $250 million that she says was obtained through fraud.

Trump has called the attorney general’s lawsuit a witch hunt. A lawyer for Trump has called James’ claims meritless.

James said her probe also uncovered evidence of criminal wrongdoing, which she referred to federal prosecutors and the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service for investigation.

NEW YORK CRIMINAL PROBE

The Trump Organization is on trial on New York tax fraud charges, in a criminal case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

The company, which operates hotels, golf courses and other real estate around the world, has pleaded not guilty to three tax fraud charges and six other counts. It could face up to $1.6 million in fines.

Trump is not charged with wrongdoing.

Allen Weisselberg, the company’s former chief financial officer, has pleaded guilty and is required to testify against the Trump Organization as part of his plea agreement. He is also a defendant in James’ civil lawsuit.

DEFAMATION CASE

E. Jean Carroll, a former Elle magazine writer, sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he denied her allegation that he raped her in the 1990s in a New York City department store. Trump accused her of lying to drum up sales for a book.

Trump appeared for a deposition in the case on Oct. 19, according to his and Carroll’s lawyers.

Trump has argued that he is shielded from Carroll’s lawsuit by a federal law that immunizes government employees from defamation claims.

The Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September said Trump was a federal employee when he called Carroll a liar, but left open the question of whether he was acting as president when he made the statement.

A Washington, D.C., appeals court will consider that question in oral arguments scheduled for Jan. 10, 2023.

Carroll also plans to sue Trump for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress under New York state law, even if the defamation lawsuit is dismissed.

U.S. CAPITOL ATTACK

A House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol is investigating whether he broke the law in actions taken to try to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Rioters sought to block Congress from certifying the election results.

In October, Trump was subpoenaed by the committee to testify under oath and provide documents.

Committee vice chair Liz Cheney, a Republican, has said the committee could make referrals to the Justice Department seeking criminal charges against Trump.

Only the Justice Department can decide whether to charge Trump with federal crimes. The panel is expected to issue written findings in the coming weeks.

Trump has called the panel’s investigation a politically motivated sham.

GEORGIA ELECTION TAMPERING PROBE

A special grand jury was empanelled in May for a Georgia prosecutor’s inquiry into Trump’s alleged efforts to influence that state’s 2020 election results.

The investigation focuses in part on a phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, on Jan. 2, 2021. Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes needed to overturn Trump’s election loss in Georgia.

Legal experts said Trump may have violated at least three Georgia criminal election laws: conspiracy to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and intentional interference with performance of election duties.

Trump could argue that his discussions were constitutionally protected free speech.

In a separate lawsuit, a California federal judge said on Oct. 19 that Trump knowingly made false voter fraud claims in a Georgia election lawsuit, citing emails the judge reviewed.

Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York and Jacqueline Thomsen in Washington; Additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Ross Colvin, Noeleen Walder, Will Dunham and Daniel Wallis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Luc Cohen

Thomson Reuters

Reports on the New York federal courts. Previously worked as a correspondent in Venezuela and Argentina.

Jacqueline Thomsen

Thomson Reuters

Jacqueline Thomsen, based in Washington, D.C., covers legal news related to policy, the courts and the legal profession. Follow her on Twitter at @jacq_thomsen and email her at jacqueline.thomsen@thomsonreuters.com.

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Entertainment

Siebel Newsom, wife of California governor, accuses Harvey Weinstein of rape

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LOS ANGELES, Nov 14 (Reuters) – Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and the wife of California’s governor, testified on Monday that former film producer Harvey Weinstein raped her in 2005 when she was trying to build a career as a producer and actor.

On the witness stand in Los Angeles Superior Court, Siebel Newsom said she met Weinstein, now 70, at the Toronto Film Festival when she was 31 and had acted in some small film and TV roles.

Weeks later in California, Weinstein invited her to meet him at The Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills for what she thought was a business meeting, she testified. She was surprised to learn that she was supposed to meet Weinstein, then one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood, in his hotel suite, she said.

When she arrived, Weinstein had no interest in discussing her projects, Siebel Newsom said. He went to the bathroom, called her over and began masturbating in front of her, she said, before touching her breasts and becoming “aggressive.”

“I was scared. This was not why I came here,” she said, often breaking into tears. “I just remembered physically trying to back away.”

Siebel Newsom said Weinstein got her onto a bed, though she cannot recall if he carried or dragged her there. He then raped her, she said.

“He was just so big and so determined,” she said. “This was hell.”

Weinstein, the man who became the face of #MeToo allegations five years ago, is serving a 23-year prison sentence for sex crimes in New York. He is now on trial in Los Angeles on 11 charges of rape and sexual assault and has pleaded not guilty.

Siebel Newsom, who was identified in court as Jane Doe #4, is one of four women whose allegations are the basis of the Los Angeles charges against Weinstein. Prosecutors had earlier said there were five accusers.

Siebel Newsom’s attorney confirmed in October that Siebel Newsom would testify in the case.

Defense attorneys have argued that all of Weinstein’s sexual encounters were consensual and that his accusers willingly took part in a “casting couch” culture to further their careers in Hollywood.

At the time of the meeting with Siebel Newsom, she had not met her future husband, current California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and she said she did not tell him what happened until after allegations against Weinstein became public.

In cross-examination, Weinstein attorney Mark Werksman questioned Siebel Newsom about why her husband had accepted campaign donations from the producer. She said the governor returned the money after she told him about her encounter.

Weinstein, 70, was convicted of sexual misconduct in New York in February 2020. He was extradited from New York to a Los Angeles prison in July 2021.

In New York, Weinstein is appealing his conviction and 23-year prison sentence. He could face up to 140 years in prison if convicted on all of the charges in Los Angeles.

Reporting by Lisa Richwine. Editing by Gerry Doyle

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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