Trump indicted on charges of scheming to evade N.Y. state taxes on income exceeding $1 billion
A grand jury in Manhattan has indicted former President Donald J. Trump on charges of scheming to evade New York State taxes on $1.1 billion in income, according to an indictment that was unsealed on Wednesday. The charges add to the criminal case Mr. Trump is already facing in New York State, where he is accused of defrauding banks and an insurance company by inflating the value of his assets. The new indictment, which covers a period of 15 years and names 19 defendants and 32 companies, is the first instance in which Mr. Trump himself has been charged over allegations of tax evasion, one of the most serious criminal offenses in New York State law. It alleges that he orchestrated a “corrupt, organized scheme” to provide “hundreds of millions of dollars in off-the-books compensation” to executives at his companies, who were then able to avoid paying taxes on that income.
“The fraud was so brazen and pervasive that it was memorialized in annual presentations” to Mr. Trump, the indictment says. It also accuses Mr. Trump of falsifying business records and scheming to defraud the state. Mr. Trump and his advisers have long insisted that he has done nothing wrong and that he is the target of political persecution. The indictment unsealed on Wednesday includes a similar assertion, saying Mr. Trump was singled out “because of his political prominence and his association with the Trump Organization.” “The charges against Mr. Trump are not only baseless but are also the product of a highly politicized investigation and a district attorney who is obsessed with the former president and his family,” said Alan S. Futerfas, a lawyer for Mr. Trump. “The Trump Organization, and every other company and individual, follows the law and pays what is legally owed, and that is exactly what the company and the individuals did here.” The indictment was the result of a two-year investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office and comes as Mr. Trump is weighing whether to run for president again in 2024.
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