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Inside the Jury Room for the Trump Organization Criminal Trial

To avoid letting their personal feelings for Donald Trump cloud their judgment, jurors for the tax fraud criminal case against the Trump Organization had a new strategy: They called the former president a “Joe Smith”.

One juror told The Daily Beast this week: “I constantly struggle with my impulsive belief that of course anything with Trump on it is a fraud. “I was shocked in mid-November when I realized that I was not sure I could convict the Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation. We talked in the jury room about having to blindfold and just look at these two companies. One of the people started calling Trump ‘Joe Smith’. From then on we called ‘Mr. Smith’s company.’”

After a six-week trial, the jury took just two days last week to reach a guilty verdict on all nine counts brought against a pair of Trump Organization affiliates. The jurors were convinced the companies were outright fraudulent, but they still felt compelled to scrutinize each criminal charge to be absolutely certain that the facts fit legal definitions. attorney, according to this juror, who spoke exclusively to The Daily Beast.

New Yorkers on the jury that sentenced Trump’s Organization tax fraud and other related offenses last week were deeply offended by the way those two Trump companies misled people, the juror said.

“Do you want pothole fix sooner? That’s the source of this money,” the person recalled hearing in the jury room.

“And the total Health Insurance the tax they evade could be $25,000. We had to look at pittance. It may be a small sum to you, but it is not a small sum to any of us. I want my Medicare to be funded,” the juror told The Daily Beast.

Manhattan District Attorney’s prosecutors successfully convinced jurors that the former Chief Financial Officer Allen Wesselberg acted “on behalf of” Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corporation when taxes were evaded and business records falsified. But so far, no one knows how jurors came to that decision.

The juror, whose identity we have confirmed, requested anonymity to avoid threats from angry MAGA loyalists. The person carefully detailed how the 12 jurors reviewed the evidence, wrestling with each other. Various criminal chargesand react to attorney presentations during two days of discussions in a room at Manhattan criminal court.

The juror said it was easy to follow instructions that Judge Juan Mercan had repeated—that Trump himself should not be tried. But the bigger challenge is to separate their personal animosity towards twice impeached former president who tried arrive cling to power and keep attacking American democracy.

“I have been very clear—as is every juror—that DJT is not a party to this case, but I can’t help but remember the 2016 argument with [Hillary] Clinton when she showed he didn’t pay federal taxes and he proudly remarked that it was because he was ‘smart’. That’s his stance on taxes and this is his company. Taxpayers are the losers, in Trumpland,” the juror said.

The jurors seemed annoyed with the way corporate defense attorney Michael van der Veen tried to apply his own defense catchphrase during the OJ Simpson trial: “Weisselberg did it because Weisselberg.”

Trump Organization Attorney Michael van der Veen returns to the courtroom after a brief respite during the Trump Organization’s tax fraud trial at the New York Supreme Court on December 5, 2022 at New York City. New York City.

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Trump’s defense attorneys argue that companies cannot be blamed for the way some executives rearrange their paychecks to evade taxes. They tried to convince the jury that the most egregious example—Weisselberg—did it all on its own and did not benefit the Trump Organization.

‘Everybody hates’Weisselberg did it for Weisselberg.’ We found it lowered. How stupid do you think we are? At least Johnnie Cochran [who famously insisted ‘If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit’] there was a possible point. said the juror, recalling that, at one point during deliberation, one of the jurors exclaimed, “Does he really think this is going to affect us?”

The same person also said jurors were offended by the way van der Veen mocked the soft-spoken person. Donald Benderlongtime contract accountant of the Trump Organization at United States Mazar who testified that he knew nothing of the company’s scam scheme.

“Michael van der Veen did nothing to help himself by imitating Donald Bender’s voice and speech impediments… calling himself a man because he spoke in a high voice. People really really didn’t like it,” the person said, noting that one juror commented, “It’s petty and unnecessary.”

But jurors also had a strong sympathy for Weisselberg’s right-hand man, who controls the company Jeffrey McConney.

The accountant was acquitted by Manhattan prosecutors from criminal charges in exchange for acknowledging his role in the scheme and removing his colleague. But before the trial, McConney pranked prosecutors while actively helping the defense. The juror who spoke to The Daily Beast said jurors appeared annoyed by the clumsy act he performed.

“No one believes McConney. Everyone understands that he is obstructing the prosecution and cannot say enough to defend,” the juror said. “[His testimony] seems incapable of lying. He tried to obfuscate but ended up sounding stupid.

The trial lasted more than a month, as it was repeatedly interrupted by the fall holidays and the COVID outbreak that left a witness—as well as the judge—sick. When jurors finally began talking to each other about the case last Monday morning during deliberations, they quickly found that they all agreed that fraud at these companies was rampant. , the person told The Daily Beast.

Initially, they considered whether to try one corporation and then another, but instead decided to consider the nine counts in numerical order, the jurors said. The head of the jury—a woman who works in health care who remains calm and reassuring—stops constantly to ask if anyone has any questions or needs to consider the evidence or not. But the review of the evidence was messy, because none of the documents were clearly marked, jurors recalled.

They first looked at whether Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corporation were involved in a scam scheme.

“Does anyone think it’s a ‘sin’?’” the foreman asked. When people quickly raised their hands, it was clear that it would be more effective to do the opposite, jurors told The Daily Beast recalls.

“From now on, I will ask if anyone thinks they Not guilty,” the foreman said, according to the juror.

The jury recalled that when some questioned Weisselberg and McConney’s roles at the company, a man who was a middle manager at a corporation told his jurors that both were sure certainly meet the criteria for “senior management representative”.

People walk past New York City Criminal Court after the Trump Organization was convicted of all charges in a criminal tax fraud conspiracy on December 6, 2022 in New York City.

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

One surprising detail, the jurors said, was that they didn’t run into what was arguably the trial’s biggest hurdle: whether Weisselberg and McConney acted “on behalf of” the corporations.

The judge gave them a rather complicated guide to this legal standard. “It is not necessary that the offenses actually benefit the corporation,” the judge instructed the jury at one point. “However, an agent’s acts are not ‘on behalf of’ the company if they are done solely to advance the agent’s own interests. In other words, if the agent’s conduct is done solely for personal gain, he or she is not ‘on behalf of’ the company.”

The jury quickly understood that this was different from saying “on behalf of,” which was the same as acting as an agent for someone’s interests. Instead, they liken it to a doctor giving a medical opinion “on behalf of” a patient, essentially doing it to help.

On that point, all jurors quickly agreed: Weisselberg apparently helped his boss evade taxes by lowering his own salary to cover luxury cars, apartments, and other benefits. other that he and his wife receive.

The jurors told The Daily Beast they “loved” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass’s explanation that the Trump Organization had benefited greatly by giving Weisselberg a car directly, because they would have to pay. give him more than that for tax purposes.

And it’s even more obvious that Weisselberg wants to help the company, because the expensive tuition checks he received from Donald Trump for his grandchildren were not returned to that man – they were directed to the Foundation. Trump.

But nothing seemed to anger jurors more than the way the company enriched its executives by paying them a portion of their salaries as “independent contractors,” which allowing some of them – including those who have not been prosecuted – to evade even more taxes.

“To some extent, everyone is disgusted when they are paid well but they still have to get more,” the juror said.

As for Trump, this juror expects a final indictment against the former president. But they weren’t surprised when DA Alvin Bragg Jr. did not pull the trigger.

“You have to know you’re going to win,” the juror said. “You can’t waste money. You can’t take Trump to court and lose because then he’s not ‘not guilty’. He is ‘innocent’. That’s how he interprets it.”



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