New York is America's largest city, but sometimes it feels like it keeps recycling the go-go '80s with a tiny cast of characters. On Thursday, New York prosecutors charged the Trump Organization and its longtime CFO, Allen Weisselberg, with 15 counts of tax-related felonies. They pleaded not guilty.
The alleged tax fraud scheme, as laid out by prosecutors, is actually pretty simple: the Trump Organization used company money to pay Weisselberg's rent, car lease, and other personal expenses, allowing him to avoid paying federal and local taxes, and kept track of the money in a secret ledger.
"As I was reading the indictment, the one thing I kept thinking was: 'My God, this is some street-level mobster bulls--t,'" one former New York prosecutor told The Independent. "Two sets of books? That's like 'How to Commit Tax Fraud 101' at crime college." University of Chicago law professor Daniel Hemel added, "This is Leona Helmsley-level stuff."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Helmsley, who died in 2007, was a greed-is-good tabloid-staple real estate magnate who served 19 months in prison after being convicted of tax fraud in 1989. She and her husband, Harry Helmsley, renovated their Greenwich, Connecticut, mansion with millions siphoned from their hotel and real estate empire, which included the Empire State Building, among other properties.
The prosecutor who sent Helmsley to jail was Rudy Giuliani, then the crusading U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. When Helmsley appealed her conviction, her lawyer was Alan Dershowitz. And Donald Trump himself kicked Helmsley when she was down, leaking a letter to the New York Post in 1988 amid an easement dispute over an Atlantic City property Trump bought from Penthouse magazine.
Howard Kurtz, now a Fox News media critic, contemporaneously described Trump's "deliciously vitriolic letter" to Helmsley in The Washington Post, saying it revealed Trump's "previously hidden capacity for venom." In the letter, Trump called Helmsley "a disgrace to the industry and a disgrace to humanity in general," and told her that without her husband, she "would not be able to randomly fire and abuse people in order to make yourself happy."
What Helmsley was convicted of and Trump's company indicted for is "the kind of crime that super-rich people think they can get away with — and that they can get caught for, particularly if they are brazen about it," Rachel Maddow said on MSNBC Thursday night. And "comically high-profile people" aren't exempt.
-
Mexico’s forced disappearancesUnder the Radar 130,000 people missing as 20-year war on drugs leaves ‘the country’s landscape ever more blood-soaked’
-
The Week contest: Racoon’s regretsPuzzles and Quizzes
-
Housing costs: Is deregulation the answer?Feature Washington, D.C.’s NoMa neighborhood is now leading the nation in new apartment construction
-
Calls for both calm and consequences follow Kirk killingTALKING POINTS The suspected assassination of far-right activist Charlie Kirk has some public figures pleading for restraint, while others agitate for violent reprisals
-
Why does Donald Trump keep showing up at major sporting events?Today's Big Question Trump has appeared at the Super Bowl, the Daytona 500 and other events
-
‘Democracy is under threat globally’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Former top FBI agents sue, claiming Trump purgeSpeed Read The agents alleged they were targeted by a “campaign of retribution”
-
Why does Trump keep interfering in the NYC mayoral race?Today's Big Question The president has seemingly taken an outsized interest in his hometown elections, but are his efforts to block Zohran Mamdani about political expediency or something deeper?
-
Judge lets Cook stay at Fed while appealing ousterSpeed Read Trump had attempted to fire Cook over allegations of mortgage fraud
-
House posts lewd Epstein note attributed to TrumpSpeed Read The estate of Jeffrey Epstein turned over the infamous 2003 birthday note from President Donald Trump
-
Supreme Court allows 'roving' race-tied ICE raidsSpeed Read The court paused a federal judge's order barring agents from detaining suspected undocumented immigrants in LA based on race
