In April of last year, Trump entered a plea of not guilty to a 34-count indictment. The indictment accused him of falsifying business records in relation to a hush money payment made by his former attorney, Michael Cohen, to Daniels. The purpose of the payment was to enhance Trump’s chances in the 2016 presidential election.
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According to Merchan, Trump is set to face a fine of $1,000 for each of the nine violations. In total, he will be required to pay $9,000.
Eric Trump was a regular presence at the New York civil fraud trial last year. However, today marks his inaugural appearance at his father’s criminal hush money trial.
During the past two weeks, Trump’s campaign staff and advisers have been present at the criminal trial. However, it is worth noting that Eric Trump is the sole member of the Trump family who has attended the proceedings.
Susie Wiles, a key campaign adviser for Trump who is actively involved in leading his presidential campaign, is present in the courtroom alongside him. This is the first instance of her being seen in court.
The courtroom is now being entered by prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
Joshua Steinglass, Becky Mangold, and Matthew Colangelo, the prosecutors, are currently seated at the counsel table.
Former President Trump and his counsel are making their way inside.
Gary Farro, the banker, took the stand on Friday and shared his experiences from his first day. He explained to the jurors that he had been involved in the case.
In 2015, one of Farro’s colleagues departed from First Republic Bank. Then, in October 2016, Cohen made a frantic effort to open an account for a new business named Resolution Consultants LLC.
Prosecutors claim that Cohen had planned to utilize the said account to transfer $125,000 to AMI, the parent company of National Enquirer, in exchange for the rights to Playboy playmate Karen McDougal’s story about her alleged affair with Trump. However, the arrangement fell apart when publisher David Pecker sought advice from his attorneys.
“I refuse to proceed with this plan. It’s a terrible idea, and I demand that you tear up the agreement,” Pecker recalled telling Cohen. “He was extremely furious and visibly distressed. He practically yelled at me.”
According to Farro, Cohen never funded or opened the account for Resolution Consultants LLC. Prosecutors claim that the account was abandoned, along with the deal to reimburse AMI for the McDougal story. However, in October 2016, Cohen approached Farro to open a new account for a company called Essential Consultants LLC. Cohen described this company as a real estate consulting firm, where he would collect fees for his investment consulting work in real estate deals.
Prosecutors allege that Cohen sent a wire transfer of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels the day after the account was created, as part of a deal to secure her silence before the 2016 election.
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The trial of former President Donald Trump’s criminal hush money case is set to continue today, with Gary Farro, the former banker for Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen, taking the stand for direct examination. This comes after David Pecker, the longtime publisher of the National Enquirer, testified.
In his testimony on Friday, Farro, a former managing director at First Republic Bank, provided an overview of the documents used to allegedly establish the shell companies linked to the hush-money payments at the heart of the case.
Farro has been called upon by prosecutors to verify records that aim to demonstrate Trump’s falsification of business documents in order to conceal the reimbursement of Cohen’s hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
“Jurors were urged by prosecutor Matthew Colangelo to thoroughly examine all the evidence presented – the documents, emails, text messages, bank statements, and handwritten notes. He emphasized that a comprehensive review of these materials would inevitably lead to a single undeniable conclusion: Donald Trump is guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.”
