Report: Prosecutors May Use a Mafia Law Against Trump that Comes With Up To 25 Years in Prison

Just how screwed is Donald Trump? From a karmic perspective, let’s put it this way: The guy is coming back in his next life as a urinal cake. And not a nice urinal cake you’d find in the men’s room of a Madison Avenue office building—we‘re talking a truck stop urinal cake that’s seen things a family publication like ours can’t even print. But in this life, from a legal perspective, how screwed is he? On the one hand, he’s yet to actually be charged with a crime. On the other, there are four criminal investigations into him and prosecutors in one of them reportedly took the major step of a convening a grand jury to hear evidence and potentially come back with indictments. And according to experts, the kind of charges they’re likely considering come with a prison sentence of up to 25 years. As in two-and-a-half decades. As in, at the age of 74—75 next month!—Donald Trump could very well die in prison. And what a crying shame that would be!

Politico reports that former prosecutors and defense attorneys believe that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. could be exploring the possibility of arguing that Trump‘s entire business empire was a corrupt enterprise under a New York law known as “little RICO,” which was modeled after the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, originally used to crack down on the mafia. “I’m sure they’re thinking about that,” longtime Manhattan defense attorney Robert Anello told reporters Josh Gerstein and Betsy Woodruff Swan. “No self-respecting state white-collar prosecutor would forgo considering the enterprise corruption charge.” The state law can be used with proof of as few as three crimes involving a business or other enterprise and carries a minimum mandatory sentence of one to three years—and a maximum term of up to 25. “It’s a very serious crime,” said Michael Shapiro, a defense attorney who used to prosecute corruption cases in New York. “Certainly, there are plenty of things an organization or business could do to run afoul of enterprise corruption, if they’re all done with the purpose of enhancing the revenue of the enterprise illegally…it’s an umbrella everything else fits under.”

Per Politico:

Vance’s team has reportedly examined a wide range of Trump and Trump Organization activities, including whether Trump aides knowingly submitted inflated real estate valuations to lenders and insurance companies while understating values for tax purposes, as The New York Times has detailed. Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen made similar claims during House testimony in 2019 and has been cooperating with Vance’s office after serving time in federal prison on several charges.

Prosecutors are reportedly eyeing several properties in their probe of potential financial wrongdoing, including Trump’s Seven Springs Estate in Westchester County, as CNBC has reported. New York Attorney General Letitia James, who recently agreed to coordinate her efforts with Vance’s, has also been examining valuations of Trump Tower in Chicago and Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles, according to a court filing last year. The district attorney’s office has also examined financial payments made during the 2016 campaign to two women in bids to keep stories about alleged sexual encounters with Trump from going public. Lawyers said alternative explanations given for the payments could violate New York laws against making false entries in business records.

Still, not all attorneys are convinced that trying to claim Trump’s entire business empire is a criminal enterprise is a great idea. “Can you imagine a defense attorney standing up and saying: ‘Are you saying the whole Donald Trump enterprise is a criminal organization?’” asked former Manhattan D.A. prosecutor Jeremy Saland. According to Saland, the best thing for prosecutors to do would be to file specific charges on issues like business or tax fraud. “Why overcharge and complicate something that could be fairly simple?” he asked. “Why muddy up the water? Why give a defense attorney something that could confuse a jury and be able to crow that they beat a charge in a motion to dismiss?” As Saland also pointed out, the penalties for crimes like massive tax fraud are similar to those for enterprise corruption, i.e. Trump could still go away for a number of years, if convicted.

As for the news of Vance’s office convening a grand jury, other experts say it will almost certainly result in indictments. “The impaneling of one of these grand juries nearly always means that the D.A. has at least tentatively decided to present at least some charges to the grand jury for its consideration of an indictment or indictments. Typically, the exact contours of what those charges are, against whom, and what they will look like is not decided until much later in the long-term grand jury’s life,” Daniel Alonso, who served as chief assistant district attorney under Vance, told Politico. And in Shapiro’s experience, the grand jury will almost always agree with prosecutors on charges. “I was a special prosecutor. I presented lots of cases to lots of special grand juries,” Shapiro said. “The prosecutors work together with the grand jury, day to day.… The natural thing that happens is everyone gets the idea we’re all on the same team. Ultimately, the grand jury will do what the prosecutors asks them to do.… If at the end of a number of months, this grand jury is asked to bring charges against Trump and others, they’ll do it—999 times out of 1,000 they do it.”

Trump Organization attorneys did not respond to Politico’s request for comment. Trump, on numerous occasions, has claimed Vance’s investigation is a “witch hunt,” and, most recently, “an affront to the almost 75 million voters who supported me in the Presidential Election.”

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In other “Trump should probably just pack it in” news

A veteran white-collar investigator working on the New York attorney general’s investigation is known as a “shark” when it comes to pursuing evidence. Which, unless sharks recently became known for being friendly, docile animals, can’t be a good thing. Per the Wall Street Journal:

The lawyer leading the New York attorney general’s criminal investigation into Donald Trump and his business is a former Manhattan prosecutor who is a veteran financial-crimes investigator with a reputation for tenacity. That prosecutor, Gary Fishman, is one of the two assistant attorneys general working with the Manhattan district attorney’s office on the Trump investigation as part of an unusual collaboration with the attorney general’s office, according to people familiar with the matter…. Mr. Fishman brings more than two decades of experience investigating white-collar crimes, first for over 15 years at the Manhattan district attorney’s office before joining the attorney general’s office in 2012. Lawyers who have worked with, and in opposition to, Mr. Fishman said he has a reputation for being tough but fair. He is meticulous and goes to great lengths to get what he needs to make a case, they said.

While prosecuting a $100 million mortgage-fraud case in 2009, Mr. Fishman’s strong suit was strategically thinking about how best to use cooperating and hostile witnesses, said Adam S. Kaufmann, a former prosecutor who worked with Mr. Fishman in the economic-crimes bureau of the Manhattan district attorney’s office. “He has a really good ability to read people and think about how they are going to come across as witnesses,” Mr. Kaufmann added. At the attorney general’s office, Mr. Fishman investigated William Rapfogel, former executive director and chief executive of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. Mr. Rapfogel pleaded guilty in 2014 to multiple felonies and admitted to stealing more than $1 million from the Jewish charity.

“He’s a dogged and experienced investigator with good prosecutorial instincts,” said Paul Shechtman, who represented Mr. Rapfogel during the investigation conducted by Mr. Fishman.

Jennifer Weisselberg, the former daughter-in-law of Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, who is currently under criminal investigation by the attorney general’s office, said Fishman first reached out to her in September 2020; she later handed over information concerning here ex-husband and ex-father-in-law that was obtained through her divorce, including bank records and tax returns. Weisselberg described Mr. Fishman as, per the Journal, “smart, serious, and no-nonsense.” She said he asked questions about how people in the Trump orbit operate, with a keen eye on relationships and the hierarchy of decision-making around the ex-president. “He’s a shark,” she said of Fishman.

Ron DeSantis insists cruise ships let unvaccinated customers aboard

A floating petri dish of COVID-19? What a treat!

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Thursday that Celebrity’s requirement that 95% of all passengers over 16 be fully vaccinated “violates the spirit” of an executive order he issued barring “vaccine passports,” as well as a state law that goes into effect July 1. If the cruise line, a subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Group, follows through, it will be “subject to a fine of $5,000” for each customer asked to show vaccination status, the governor’s office said.

The CDC requires that 95% of cruise ship passengers and 98% of crew members be fully vaccinated on non-volunteer cruises, and Celebrity said it plans to stick with those rules. “Our commitment to sail with fully vaccinated crew members and guests still stands, as it is a meaningful layer to ensure we make every effort to help keep safe our guests, crew, and the communities we visit,” Celebrity spokeswoman Susan Lomax told USA Today.

DeSantis press secretary Christina Pushaw insisted that it’s “discriminatory, unethical, and harmful for society” to require that cruise ship passengers be vaccinated and added that such a stipulation “not only violates civil liberties,” but also “discriminates against families with children who enjoy vacations.” Cruise ship discrimination!

Senate Republicans officially kill bill to investigate 1/6 insurrection

We don’t want to jump to any conclusions here but it might, might because they (and their demigod) caused it.

Elsewhere!

Biden Unveils $6 Trillion Spending Plan (WSJ)

Who Gets the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the Divorce? (Intelligencer)

Bitcoin Slumps as Traders Brace for a Volatile Long Weekend (Bloomberg)

Renewed focus on Wuhan lab scrambles the politics of the pandemic (Washington Post)

Biden’s Fossil Fuel Moves Clash With Pledges on Climate Change (NYT)

Dimon Sharpens Criticism of Biden’s Tax Hike Proposal (Bloomberg)

Chevy Chase, Md., was mostly unscathed by COVID-19. But it could get up to $2.5 million in relief funds (Washington Post)

Rising beef prices squeeze carnivores from Buenos Aires to California (Reuters)

Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Has Over 100 Questions for Jurors (WSJ)

Darth Vader house on market for $4.3 million (NYP)

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