Former President Donald Trump.
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Donald Trump’s real-estate and golf-resort company is on trial on tax fraud charges in Manhattan.
The DA began its case by calling a less-than-ideal prosecution witness, the company’s controller.
The witness was asked about his $450K-a-year salary — and said he’d prepped with Trump lawyers.
Manhattan prosecutors called their first witness in the Trump Organization tax fraud trial on Monday — and immediately worked to impress on jurors that this witness, the company’s controller, is not on their team, but on team Trump.
The less-than-ideal DA witness, whose testimony continues Tuesday, is Jeffrey McConney. As controller, McConney has for 35 years supervised payroll and tax reporting at the former president’s multi-billion-dollar real-estate and golf resort empire.
Early on in McConney’s testimony, lead prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked him about how much Trump’s company still pays him — he answered $450,000 a year — and about how he’d stopped cooperating with prosecutors.
McConney told jurors that he is in fact meeting with the defense, who coached him on his testimony as recently as Sunday, the day before his taking the stand.
“When you spoke with Ms. Necheles this Sunday?” Steinglass asked, in one awkward confrontation, as he labored to reacquaint himself in public with his own witness. Susan Necheles is one of the Trump Organization’s defense lawyers.
“Did she tell you to make sure to hit certain points?” Steinglass asked.
“I believe so, yes,” answered McConney, a large, white-haired, and mustachioed man.
“Did she tell you to phrase things certain ways?” the prosecutor pursued.
“I believe so,” McConney said again.
“You were not willing to discuss your testimony with anyone from the DA’s office?” the prosecutor then asked — earning a defense objection that was sustained by the judge.
“In the last couple of weeks,” the prosecutor tried again, this time leaving McConney’s “willingness” or any of his other feelings, out of it, “are you aware that your attorney refused to make you available?”
McConney answered that he couldn’t quite remember, but that if his attorney advised him not to do something, then he generally did not do it.
Oh, and his attorney? Also paid for by the Trump Organization, McConney testified.
Steinglass asked at this point to have McConney declared a hostile witness, a designation that would give the prosecutor the advantage of being allowed to ask leading questions, the kind answerable by “yes,” or “no.”
“His attorney in fact is paid by the Trump Organization,” Steinglass argued to the trial judge, state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, outside the jury’s hearing. “That’s the textbook definition of adverse witnesses.”
“He’s friendly,” Necheles, the defense lawyer, countered. “He’s answering every question.”
The judge agreed, explaining that a hostile witness declaration “is to get the witness to be open and honest and not conceal,” and “right now, I don’t think I have the basis for declaring him a hostile witness.”
McConney was allowed to continue his testimony, the bulk of which is set for Tuesday.
Two subsidiaries of the Trump Organization — the Trump Corporation, which employs its executives, and the Trump Payroll Corporation, which pays those executives — are charged in a 15-year tax-dodge scheme.
The alleged scheme was described during opening statements earlier Monday.
The two entities, both of which do business as the Trump Organization, are alleged by prosecutors to have allowed executives to take significant amounts of their pay in the form of untaxed perks, such as rent-free Trump apartments and the free use of luxury vehicles.
The defense denies any complicity in the alleged scheme and countered that it actually victimized the company and that no one from the very top of the company was involved.
No one at that very top — not Donald Trump or any of his three eldest children — is charged or required to be in court for the trial, which is expected to last another month or more.
But Donald Trump’s name did pop up during McConney’s testimony.
In one key moment, Steinglass asked McConney when his boss, Allen Weisselberg — the company’s former chief financial officer and the DA’s most important witness — stopped receiving some pay in the form of a non-employee bonus.
Did that stop at around the time Trump was elected president and turned day-to-day operations over to a revocable trust, an entity run by Eric Trump and Weisselberg, Steinglass asked.
“I think coincidentally it was,” McConney answered.
“Did you say coincidentally?” Steinglass responded, in more of a spoken-aloud, skeptical thought than an actual question.
McConney is testifying with immunity after testifying before a Manhattan grand jury. References to his testimony in court papers indicate he took the blame for his own actions and did not incriminate anyone at the very top of the company.
Weisselberg stepped down as CFO after being indicted in the summer of 2021; he remains on the payroll on paid leave. His last reported salary was in excess of $900,000. He, too, is not expected to incriminate anyone above him.
A third key prosecution witness from inside the company, whose name has not been revealed, also remains on the Trump payroll and is cooperating with the defense instead of prosecutors, it was said during jury selection last week.