John Jefferson
Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of Donald Trump’s Trump Organization, has been released from Rikers Island jail for the second time, according to New York City Department of Corrections records.
Weisselberg, 76, pleaded guilty in March to committing perjury during his testimony in the fraud lawsuit that New York’s attorney general Letitia James brought against his former employer, now the Republican presidential nominee.
The ex-CFO was sentenced to five months in Rikers on April 10 but was released on Friday after 100 days for good behaviour.
Weisselberg admitted lying about the size of Trump’s Manhattan penthouse and how it came to be overvalued on company financial statements in a July 2023 deposition.
In return for pleading guilty to two counts of perjury, prosecutors agreed not to prosecute him for any other crimes he might have committed in connection with his longtime employment by the Trump Organization.
“Allen Weisselberg accepted responsibility for his conduct and now looks forward to the end of this life-altering experience and to returning to his family and his retirement,”Seth Rosenberg, his attorney, said after his sentencing in the spring.
It was Weisselberg’s second stint behind bars, the retiree having served 100 days in prison last year for the non-payment of taxes on $1.7m in company perks, including a rent-free apartment in Manhattan and luxury cars.
Weisselberg, who was employed by Trump’s family for nearly 50 years, testified twice during trials that went badly for the politician, with the fraud case ultimately leading New York Justice Arthur Engoron to fine Trump and his fellow executives $450m plus interest for systematically misrepresenting the value of assets between 2011 and 2021 to obtain favourable terms from lenders.
Trump placed a discounted bond a month later in order to appeal the verdict.
Each time Weisselberg gave evidence on his boss’s behalf, he took pains to insist that his employer had not committed any serious wrongdoing.
His detention in Rikers prevented his being called to testify at the former president’s hush money trial in New York, which began just five days after Weisselberg’s sentencing and ended with Trump being found guilty by a jury on all 34 counts he faced of falsifying business records to conceal a payment made to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels to say quiet about an alleged sexual encounter.
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