Trump’s company to be sentenced for 15-year tax fraud

Reuters :
Donald Trump on Friday will learn how the company that bears the former US president’s name will be punished after being found guilty of scheming to defraud tax authorities for 15 years.
A New York state judge will impose the sentence after jurors in Manhattan found two Trump Organisation affiliates guilty of 17 criminal charges last month.
The sentencing comes three days after Justice Juan Merchan of the Manhattan criminal court ordered Allen Weisselberg, who worked for Trump’s family for a half-century and was the company’s former chief financial officer, to jail for five months after he testified as the prosecution’s star witness.
Trump’s company faces only a maximum $1.6 million penalty, but has said it plans to appeal. No one else was charged or faces jail time in the case.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which brought the case, is still conducting a criminal probe into Trump’s business practices.
Bill Black, a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law specialising in white-collar crime, called the expected penalty a “rounding error” that offers “zero deterrence” to others, including Trump.
“This is a farce,” he said. “No one will stop committing these kinds of crimes because of this sentence.”
The case has long been a thorn in the side of the Republican former president, who calls it part of a witch hunt by Democrats who dislike him and his politics.
Trump also faces a $250 million civil lawsuit by state Attorney General Letitia James accusing him and his adult children Donald Trump Jr, Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump of inflating his net worth and the value of his company’s assets to save money on loans and insurance.