People of The State of New York v. Trump (1:23-cv-03773)

Source: CourtListener
Type: court-document

Source Text

Excerpt only. The full source text is too long to reproduce here:

On April 4, 2023, a grand jury in the Supreme Court of New York County charged defendant with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree in violation of New York Penal Law Section 175.10. The indictment alleges that the crimes took place between February and December 2017. They could be categorized into three types of business falsifications: Those involving business records and a form of invoices take up 11 counts; those in the form of general ledger falsifications take up 12 counts; and those in the form of checks and check stubs take up 12 counts. All 34 counts allege that defendant made and caused false entries in the business records of the Trump businesses with attempt to defraud and with intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission of such other crime.

The indictment is embellished by a statement of facts found in the records of the Supreme Court and removed to this court. The People allege in that statement that defendant, Donald Trump, is a beneficial owner of the Trump Organization, a collection of business entities headquartered in New York County. The defendant had announced his candidacy for President of the United States in June 2015. Then in August 2015, two months later, defendant met with Michael Cohen, a lawyer, who had been employed as special counsel to defendant Trump and to the Trump Organization, that there was a meeting between Cohen and the Chief Executive Officer of American Media Inc. and the defendant and that the three agreed to a scheme to suppress negative stories about defendant. Specifically, the Chief Executive Officer of a company called American Media Inc. agreed to suppress negative stories and to alert Cohen before they were published.

In October 2016, American Media became aware of a story regarding a woman named Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress, who claimed that she had a sexual encounter with defendant while he was married. The Editor in Chief of American Media contacted Cohen and Cohen and Clifford’s lawyer agreed to pay Clifford $130,000 in exchange for her rights to her story. The statement goes on to allege that Cohen discussed the agreement with Donald Trump and with the Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organization. Defendant Trump stated that he did not want to make the payments himself. After discussion between Cohen and the Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organizations, Cohen agreed to advance the payment with the understanding that he would be reimbursed.

Following a conversation between Cohen and defendant Trump on October 26th, 2017, Cohen opened a bank account in Manhattan in the name of a dummy company he created called Essential Consultants LLC. Cohen deposited 131,000 taken from his personal home equity line of credit in October 2017, wired 130,000 from the account to Clifford’s lawyer.

The statement goes on, in January 2017, defendant met with Cohen and the Chief Financial Officer to discuss how Cohen would be reimbursed for his payment to Clifford. They agreed to a payment of 420,000 to Cohen made up to include 180,000 to reimburse Cohen for the 130,000 payment he had made to Clifford and for another 50,000 expense, then to double that amount, equal to $360,000 so that Cohen could characterize that payment on his income taxes as income, rather than as reimbursement for expenses.

So he was given that 360,000. He was promised to be given that 360,000, plus another 60,000 as a year-end bonus for his services. Trump was to pay Cohen by 12 monthly installments of 35,000 each, the equal of $420,000.

Each month, Cohen was to send an invoice to Trump through the Trump Organization requesting payment of $35,000 for legal services rendered in that month pursuant to a retainer agreement. The statement alleges that, in fact, no retainer agreement between Cohen and Trump existed or between Cohen and the Trump Organization existed.

On February 14th, 2017 — and to remind us, Donald Trump began office as president in January 2017 — on February 14th, 2017, Cohen emailed his first invoice to the controller of the Trump Organization requesting 35,000 for January and 35,000 for February as his retainer. Cohen’s statement said, pursuant to the retainer agreement, kindly remit payment for services rendered for the months of January and February 2017. The Chief Financial Officer approved the payment. The controller sent the invoice to the Trump Organization accounts payable supervisor with the instruction to post to legal expenses, put retainer for the months of January and February 2017 in the description.

Cohen submitted ten similar invoices to the Trump Organization for each month of 2017 stating that it was being submitted pursuant to the retainer agreement and requesting payment for services rendered that month.

According to the statement, the Trump Organization marked each invoice with a general ledger code representing legal expenses, kept the invoices and business records of expenses paid and recorded the payments in its electronic accounting system, describing each payment as legal expense. The accounts payable supervisor of the Trump Organization prepared the check and check stub for approval.

The first two checks were paid by the Donald J. Trump Irrevocable Trust, signed by two trustees. That trust had been created to hold all of Trump’s private assets while he was president. The check stubs recorded the payments as retainer payments. Defendant Donald Trump signed the remaining checks himself, drawn on his own bank account. The signed checks and the check stubs were sent from Trump to New York, back to the Trump Organization, where they were scanned, recorded and mailed to Cohen as payments, and thereafter maintained as business records.

In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to a felony in connection with his role in American Media’s payments. He stated, on or about October 2016, in coordination with and at the direction of the candidate for federal office, Donald Trump, I arranged to make a payment to a second individual with information that will be harmful to the candidate and to the campaign to keep the individual from disclosing the information. To accomplish this, I used a company that was under my control to make a payment in the sum of $130,000. The monies I advanced in my company were later repaid to me by the candidate. I participated in this conduct, which in part took place in Manhattan, for the principal purpose of influencing the election.

Events Citing This Source

Event	Date	Category
Hush Money Payment to Stormy Daniels	Oct-Nov 2016	Fraud & Financial Crime

People Mentioned

Person	Role

Institutions Mentioned

Institution	Description

Related Sources

Source	Type	Publisher
Trump avoids punishment at hush-money sentencing	news-reporting	Reuters
Michael Cohen Pleads Guilty In Manhattan Federal Court To Eight Counts - Including Criminal Tax Evasion And Campaign Finance Violations	government-filing	Justice.gov