The Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, surrendered to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office on Thursday after a grand jury indicted him and former President Donald Trump's company in a case over its business dealings.
The charges, handed up by a New York grand jury, stem from a scheme to pay compensation to Weisselberg and possibly others "off the books" by the Trump Organization. They are expected to be unsealed in court Thursday afternoon in Manhattan, one Trump representative told NBC News.
Weisselberg's attorney, Mary Mulligan, confirmed he had turned himself in but had no further comment.
A Trump Organization spokesperson called the indictments politically motivated and said Weisselberg "is now being used by the Manhattan district attorney as a pawn in a scorched-earth attempt to harm the former president."
"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," the spokesperson said. "This is not justice; this is politics."
Both the Manhattan district attorney and the New York Attorney General’s Office obtained the indictments, two people familiar with the matter told NBC News on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to comment Wednesday on a report that indictments had been filed.
NBC News reported last week that District Attorney Cy Vance’s office was expected to charge the Trump Organization as early as this week
The charges come amid an investigation Vance has been conducting into a variety of allegations of financial improprieties against former President Donald Trump’s company. Vance’s office had been looking into criminal conduct at the Trump Organization, court documents previously showed, such as falsifying business records, insurance fraud and tax fraud.
The Wall Street Journal first reported that the charges would be filed Thursday, including against Weisselberg.
NBC News reported in March that Weisselberg’s former daughter-in-law, Jennifer Weisselberg, had spoken multiple times with investigators and that Vance was investigating whether Trump employees, including the Weisselbergs, were able to avoid paying taxes in exchange for fringe benefits, such as an apartment.
The investigation appeared to speed up once Vance’s office won a lengthy battle in February to obtain Trump's personal and corporate tax returns and underlying financial documents.
Last week, an attorney for the Trumps, Ron Fischetti, called the impending charges “completely outrageous” and said they were being pursued because Weisselberg didn’t cooperate with investigators.
"They could not get him to cooperate because he would not say that Donald Trump had knowledge or any information that he may have been not deducting properly the use of cars or an apartment,” he said.
