NEW YORK -- Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of Donald Trump's company, pleaded guilty Monday to lying under oath during his testimony in the ex-president's New York civil fraud case. His plea deal will send him back to jail but does not require that he testify at Trump's hush-money criminal trial.
Weisselberg, 76, pleaded guilty in state court in Manhattan to two counts of perjury and will be sentenced in April to five months in jail -- his second stint behind bars after serving 100 days last year for dodging taxes on company perks.
In pleading guilty, Weisselberg found himself caught again between the law and his loyalty to Trump, whose family employed him for nearly 50 years, sent him into retirement with a $2 million severance and has continued to pay his legal bills. His plea to perjury is further evidence that, rather than testify truthfully in a way that might harm his old boss, he was willing to again spend a chunk of his golden years in jail.
Although Weisselberg neither committed violence nor orchestrated an elaborate scheme, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's prosecutors argued that perjury undermines the broader ends of justice and cannot be ignored.
Gary Fishman, one of the prosecutors, on Monday underscored the harm caused by perjury, which he said "tears at the very fabric of our justice system."
"It is a crime to lie in depositions and at trial -- plain and simple," Bragg's office said in a statement.
Weisselberg's plea agreement does not require him to cooperate or testify at the hush-money trial, which is scheduled to begin March 25. Prosecutors promised not to prosecute him for other crimes he might have committed in connection with his employment at the Trump Organization.
In court Monday, Weisselberg admitted lying under oath on three occasions while testifying in a lawsuit brought against Trump by New York Attorney General Letitia James -- in deposition testimony in July 2020 and May 2023 and on the witness stand at the trial last October.
However, to avoid violating his probation in the tax case, he agreed to plead guilty only to charges related to his 2020 testimony.
"Allen Weisselberg looks forward to putting this situation behind him," his lawyer Seth Rosenberg said in a statement.
Trump's lawyers argued Weisselberg did nothing wrong and was targeted by Bragg, a Democrat, "in a tyrannical attempt" to impede Trump's presidential campaign.
"This plea was no doubt extorted by threatening an elderly and innocent man with immediate and lengthy incarceration," Trump lawyer Christopher Kise said. "Such alarming, shameful and oppressive tactics have no place in our justice system and expose the citizens of New York to irreparable and life-altering harm."
Weisselberg surrendered to the DA's office Monday morning and entered court in handcuffs wearing a blue surgical mask and a dark suit. He admitted lying when he testified he had little knowledge or awareness of how Trump's Manhattan penthouse came to be valued on his financial statements at nearly three times its actual size.
Weisselberg stood placidly Monday as he answered the judge's questions about his plea, often with one-word responses.
"You knew that testimony was false?" Judge Laurie Peterson asked Weisselberg on Monday.
"Yes," Weisselberg replied.
Weisselberg will be formally sentenced April 10. In agreeing to a five-month sentence, prosecutors cited Weisselberg's age and willingness to admit wrongdoing. In New York, perjury is a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison.
The judge in the civil fraud case ruled last month that Trump, Weisselberg and others schemed to deceive banks, insurers and others by lying about Trump's wealth on financial statements used to make deals and secure loans.
Along with penalizing Trump $455 million, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Weisselberg to pay $1 million -- the amount of severance he has received so far. Weisselberg was also permanently barred from serving in a financial position at any New York company. Trump, Weisselberg and their co-defendants are appealing.
In his decision, Engoron wrote that he found Weisselberg's testimony "intentionally evasive, with large gaps of 'I don't remember.'"
The judge wrote that Weisselberg's severance agreement "renders his testimony highly unreliable" because it bars him from voluntarily cooperating with law enforcement.
"The Trump Organization keeps Weisselberg on a short leash, and it shows," Engoron wrote.
Trump's Manhattan penthouse was valued on his financial statements from at least 2012 to 2016 as though it measured 30,000 square feet.
Kevin Sneddon, a former managing director of Trump's real estate brokerage arm, testified that Weisselberg provided the larger figure. Sneddon recalled Weisselberg asking him in 2012 to calculate the triplex's value. He said when he asked for its size, Weisselberg replied: "It's quite large. I think it's around 30,000 square feet."
However, Weisselberg got an email early in that same year with an attachment including a 1994 document that pegged Trump's apartment at 10,996 square feet.
Weisselberg testified that he recalled the email, but not the attachment, and that he didn't "walk around knowing the size" of the apartment.
After Forbes magazine published an article in 2017 disputing the size of Trump's penthouse, its estimated value was subsequently cut from $327 million to about $117 million on Trump's financial statement.
As Weisselberg was testifying, Forbes published an article on its website with the headline: "Trump's Longtime CFO Lied, Under Oath, About Trump Tower Penthouse."
Jury selection in Trump's hush-money case is set to start in three weeks. The first of Trump's four indictments to go to trial, it involves accusations that Trump falsified company records to cover up payments made during the 2016 campaign to bury allegations of extramarital sexual encounters. Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, has pleaded innocent and denies wrongdoing.
Former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen has said Weisselberg had a role in orchestrating the payments. Weisselberg has not been charged in that case. Neither prosecutors nor Trump's lawyers have indicated they will call Weisselberg as a witness.
Prosecutors have suggested in court papers that they plan to show jurors "handwritten notes" they claim Weisselberg wrote during a January 2017 meeting with Cohen. Trump's lawyers have said the notes are hearsay unless Weisselberg testifies.
Weisselberg went to jail last year after pleading guilty to evading taxes on $1.7 million in off-the-books compensation from the Trump Organization, including a luxury apartment and a Mercedes-Benz. Prior to that, he had no criminal record.
Under that plea deal, Weisselberg was required to testify as a prosecution witness at a trial that led to the Trump Organization's conviction on charges of helping executives evade taxes. He did so carefully, laying out the facts of his own involvement but telling jurors Trump was unaware of the scheme.
The company was convicted, and Weisselberg received a five-month sentence. With good behavior, he served nearly 100 days behind bars at New York City's notorious Rikers Island jail complex.
He left Rikers in April 2023.
Information for this article was contributed by Jake Offenhartz, Michael R. Sisak, Jennifer Peltz and Michelle L. Price of The Associated Press and by Ben Protess, William K. Rashbaum, Jesse McKinley and Kate Christobek of The New York Times.
Allen Weisselberg, second from left, is escorted to Manhattan criminal court, Monday, March 4, 2024, in New York. Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney Monday morning for arraignment on new criminal charges, the prosecutor's office said. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Allen Weisselberg, center, is escorted to Manhattan criminal court, Monday, March 4, 2024, in New York. Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney Monday morning for arraignment on new criminal charges, the prosecutor's office said. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Allen Weisselberg appears in Manhattan criminal court in New York on Monday, March 4, 2024. Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney Monday morning for arraignment on new criminal charges, the prosecutor's office said. (Curtis Means/Daily Mail via AP, Pool)
Allen Weisselberg, center, is escorted to Manhattan criminal court, Monday, March 4, 2024, in New York. Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney Monday morning for arraignment on new criminal charges, the prosecutor's office said. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Allen Weisselberg, center, is escorted to Manhattan criminal court, Monday, March 4, 2024, in New York. Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney Monday morning for arraignment on new criminal charges, the prosecutor's office said. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Allen Weisselberg appears in Manhattan criminal court in New York on Monday, March 4, 2024. Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney Monday morning for arraignment on new criminal charges, the prosecutor's office said. (Curtis Means/Daily Mail via AP, Pool)
Allen Weisselberg appears in Manhattan criminal court in New York on Monday, March 4, 2024. Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney Monday morning for arraignment on new criminal charges, the prosecutor's office said. (Curtis Means/Daily Mail via AP, Pool)
Allen Weisselberg appears in Manhattan criminal court in New York on Monday, March 4, 2024. Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney Monday morning for arraignment on new criminal charges, the prosecutor's office said. (Curtis Means/Daily Mail via AP, Pool)
Allen Weisselberg, right, is escorted to Manhattan criminal court, Monday, March 4, 2024, in New York. Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney Monday morning for arraignment on new criminal charges, the prosecutor's office said. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)