Trump Org. defense lawyer scolded for using struck testimony
NEW YORK (AP) — Closing arguments at the Trump Organization’s criminal tax fraud trial got off to a rocky start Thursday as a lawyer for the company was caught showing jurors portions of witness testimony that had previously been stricken from the official court record.
Prosecutors objected to the display about an hour into lawyer Susan Necheles’ presentation. The judge, Juan Manuel Merchan, admonished Necheles and halted arguments so she could remove any other precluded testimony from a slideshow she was showing to jurors.
Necheles said she didn’t intend to show any testimony that had been stricken as a result of a sustained objection. Merchan noted that the objections themselves had been removed from the excerpts Necheles showed, but not the objectionable testimony.
Necheles resumed her closing argument after a half-hour break. Merchan briefly discussed the transcript issue with jurors and Necheles proceeded to show them the correct version, prefacing her remarks with a mea culpa: “Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for that error.”
The transcript kerfuffle was just the latest dust-up involving Trump Organization lawyers. Earlier this week, Merchan scolded the defense for submitting hundreds of pages of court papers just before midnight Sunday.
The Trump Organization, the entity through which former President Donald Trump manages his real estate holdings and other ventures, is accused of helping some top executives avoid paying income taxes on company-paid perks, such as apartments and luxury cars.
The tax fraud case is the only trial to arise from the Manhattan district attorney’s three-year investigation of Trump and his business practices.
The Trump Organization’s longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, has admitted that he came up with the long-running scheme...
