Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is prosecuting Trump for cooking his company’s books to hide payments he arranged to adult film actress Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 election, to cover up an alleged sexual encounter a decade earlier.
Trump’s former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg is serving a five-month jail term for the same charge of falsifying business records.
Manhattan prosecutors say Trump “repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election”.
A “statement of facts” released alongside the indictment included details of hush money payments to Daniels, Playboy model Karen McDougal and a former Trump Tower doorman claiming to have a story about a child Trump had out of wedlock.
“DARKEST HOURS”
Daniels was paid US$130,000 by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, while McDougal and the doorman got US$150,000 and US$30,000 respectively from AMI, the publishers of supermarket tabloid the National Enquirer.
Bragg alleges that Trump and his allies “also took steps that mischaracterised, for tax purposes, the true nature of the payments”.
Trump and his lawyers have accused Bragg of over-reaching in his characterisation of the allegations.
The one-time reality TV star had sent a fundraising email shortly before flying back to Florida, saying that since the news of his indictment broke, his campaign had raised over US$10 million.
“While we are living through the darkest hours of American history, I can say that at least for this moment right now, I am in great spirits,” Trump said.
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