The Trump Organization’s former CFO, Allen Weisselberg, pled guilty to perjury in New York state criminal court today, as anticipated in my post this morning (citing a New York Times report). The Times now adds that Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecutors are recommending to Judge Laurie Peterson that the 76-year-old Weisselberg serve another five months in state prison. (As I explained in the post, he has already been imprisoned for minor — albeit felony — tax convictions won by Bragg’s office.)
In the post, I described Bragg’s latest prosecution of Weisselberg as less a renewed attempt to coerce the cooperation of the former CFO (who still has not implicated Trump personally in any wrongdoing) than a shot across the bow of Trump’s defense team, intended to discourage witnesses who might provide favorable testimony to him.
The Times makes the same suggestion but puts it more favorably regarding the DA and his motives: “Monday’s guilty plea could strengthen Mr. Bragg’s hand heading into the trial, deterring other witnesses in Mr. Trump’s circle from lying on the stand.” Of course potential witnesses should be deterred from lying on the stand; on the other hand, prosecutors are not supposed to discourage defense witnesses from taking the stand in the first place.
On that score, I would note that, because of the media coverage it will undoubtedly generate and the prudent practice of courts to avoid stoking publicity that a sitting jury could be exposed to and prejudiced by, one might have assumed that Bragg and Judge Peterson would delay Weisselberg’s sentencing until after Trump’s criminal trial. But no, Weisselberg is scheduled to be sentenced on April 10.
That should be in the middle of the trial scheduled to begin on March 25 — probably a bit before the defense case, when witnesses would be weighing the risks of testifying in Trump’s behalf.