They still want to search two cell phones belonging to former President Donald Trump, as well as the laptop and desktop computer of his longtime executive assistant, Rona Graf, but investigators told a judge this week that they were moving fast.
“The process is over,” Kevin Wallace, a senior law enforcement adviser in New York State, said Monday.
A third-party firm hired to search the Trump Organization’s files has identified 151 trustees or individuals or entities that may have documents sought from the attorney general’s office, but Wallace said they are focusing on “the most important unintelligible information.” because the clock is ticking to sue.
The statute of limitations for the various laws under consideration is several years ago, but the toll agreement with the Trump Organization, which paused the clock, expires on Saturday. Even after the agreement expires, it may still be several weeks before the prosecution decides its next step in the investigation.
The comments came during a court hearing Monday when New York State Judge Arthur Engoren accused Trump of civil contempt and fined him $ 10,000 a day for failing to serve a summons for documents related to the New York investigation into the Trump Organization’s finances. .
Lawyers for the New York Attorney General’s Office reviewed their three-year investigation after a judge asked them to explain why it took so long and where it was headed.
“Given the impending expiration of the toll agreement, we will probably have to take some kind of enforcement action in the near future to preserve our rights,” Wallace said. He noted that before submitting documents, the Attorney General’s Office had agreed to meet with Trump Organization’s lawyers and “allow them to present their arguments” and discuss what all “appropriate solutions” might look like.
In addition to the expiration of the toll agreement, the evidence may become obsolete and memories may fade, Wallace said. “The lawyer supports the movement as soon as possible.”
The civil investigation has been hanging over Trump for several years. He is focused on an investigation that threatens his family business, calling Attorney General Leticia James a “racist” and accusing her of pursuing him for political gain.
The Attorney General’s Office has already said in court documents that it believes there were misleading allegations and omissions in Trump’s financial statements that were provided to creditors and insurers and used for tax breaks. Trump called the investigation a witch hunt, and he and the company denied any wrongdoing.
Earlier, the judge ordered Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump to sit for testimony. Trump has appealed and it is unclear when a decision will be made. Eric Trump was ousted in 2020 and defended his right to the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination more than 500 times. Last month, at the request of the chief prosecutor, the judge ordered the Trump Organization to execute the summons by Friday.
Wallace said that because the Trump Organization is not cooperating in the investigation, the office began an “unmanaged tour” using financial statements provided to Congress by former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen in February 2019. What the lawyers found, he said. was a company that lacked the processes and controls commonly found in regulated industries such as banking. Trump’s real estate business – which is large in terms of the number of golf courses, apartments, hotels and office space it owns – is run as a small family business.
“The company relies more on its people than on its systems,” Wallace said. There are 500 different entities, millions of dollars moving and different accounting practices and reports depending on the business unit, he said.
The Attorney General’s Office handed over the first of six summonses to the Trump Organization in December 2019, said Alina Haba, Trump’s lawyer, at Monday’s hearing. To date, she said, millions of pages of documents have been turned over and 13 Trump Organization employees have been interviewed. Among them are Alan Weisselberg, who has served as chief financial officer for decades; Alan Garten, chief adviser to the Trump Organization; and Jeffrey McConey, the controller; along with McConey’s deputy and other finance officials, according to court documents.
One example of the complexity of the business is Trump’s golf course in Jupiter, Florida. Wallace said they were pulling strings to see if this was “presented fairly” in Trump’s financial statements.
He said the golf club, which was bought in 2012 for $ 5 million, is included in the financial statements in the club’s $ 2 billion asset package. There were no footnotes describing what was included in the package. Supporting documents say Trump estimated the exchange rate at $ 46 million. Investigators then sought to determine where the $ 41 million additional value came from, which he said led them to turn to additional avenues for investigation.
“These problems are recurring in the clubs,” Wallace said. “Each of these assets is like a Russian nesting doll.”
Haba said: “There were many layers and many people, because that’s how real estate companies work.”
The financial statements underlying the Attorney General’s investigation, she said, were an unaudited compilation by a family company.
“These are complex banks and companies,” she said. “No one has lent us money without our own inspection.”
“Honestly, I would like to go into the details of my client’s property, some of which are greatly underestimated, but I do not think we are still at this stage,” Haba said.
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