Trump Cleared of Potential Westchester Charges by District Attorney Who Called Him a ‘Criminal,’ but His Legal Horizon Darkens

The decision by a district attorney not to criminally charge President Trump is good news for the beleaguered mogul, even if it’s not the prosecutor or case he most fears. A reprieve from the possibility of yet another set of charges, it does little to alleviate a wider legal landscape chock full of potential legal difficulties for the former president. The district attorney of Westchester County, Miriam Rocha, opted not to charge Mr. Trump or the Trump Organization after an investigation into whether the former president’s business illegally misled authorities about the value of the Trump National Golf Club Westchester at affluent Briarcliff Manor, just north of New York City.In a statement, Ms. Rocha said that she reached her decision “objectively, and independent of politics, party affiliation and personal or political beliefs.” She told CBS News: “It’s really important, more important than ever in our country, to make sure that people understand that we have independent prosecutors, we have a justice system that operates independent of politics.”Ms. Rocha, a Democrat, has not always taken such a disinterested tone. In 2019, in response to Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial, the federal prosecutor turned MSNBC commentator opined that “we have a criminal in the White House right now.” He was acquitted by the Senate. Mr. Trump took to Truth Social to celebrate the development, calling it “an honorable thing to do” and asking, “But where and when do I get my reputation back? When will the other fake cases against me be dropped? Election interference!!!” Mr. Trump appears to be referring to the criminal cases against him mounted by Special Counsel Jack Smith and District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The investigation at Westchester was first opened two years ago, and even featured its own special prosecutor, Elliott Jacobson, who left that post at the end of 2022. Ms. Rocha apparently decided that the wrangling over the property’s true value and corresponding tax bill could not support charges.The Westchester case, though, has not been entirely exorcized from the panoply of Mr. Trump’s dockets. While Mr. Smith investigates documents at Mar-a-Lago and Mr. Bragg mulls hush money payments to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, the New York attorney general, Letitia James, is taking aim at Mr. Trump’s business empire in a trial scheduled for October. That civil suit, which seeks $250 million in damages and demands that the Trumps be barred from leading a New York-based company, accuses Mr. Trump and his family of “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentations” amounting to “more than 200 false asset valuations over a ten year period.” Ms. James accused Mr. Trump of being a master of the “Art of the Steal” rather than the “Art of the Deal,” and cited the Trump Organization’s valuation of Mar-a-Lago, whose storage rooms and bathrooms have come under scrutiny, as high as $739 million. Ms. James estimates its value as about $75 million. Ms. James’s suit also attends to the Westchester property that Ms. Rocha has spent years scrutinizing. It alleges that “at Mr. Trump’s golf course in Westchester, the valuation for 2011 assumed new members would pay an initiation fee of nearly $200,000 for each of the 67 unsold memberships, even though many new members in that year paid no initiation fee at all.”While it is not immediately clear why Ms. James decided to file a lawsuit against Mr. Trump and Ms. Rocha declined to do so, one explanation could be the differing standards of proof required. A criminal case requires guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, while a civil one demands only a preponderance of evidence, or 51 percent certainty. In civil trials, a unanimous verdict is not required.There could be a connective thread, though, between the scrutiny of Mr. Trump’s golf course at Briarcliff Manor and the threats to his liberty. The former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, 75, has already pleaded guilty to 15 criminal charges, among them grand larceny, criminal tax fraud, and falsifying business records. He served time at Rikers Island. While Weisselberg is now a free man, he apparently is not free of the attention of Mr. Bragg. The New York Times reports that the prosecutor is eyeing perjury charges against the accountant, a potential legal cudgel to compel Weisselberg to aid the prosecution of Mr. Trump, who faces that same charge of falsifying business records.

Trump Cleared of Potential Westchester Charges by District Attorney Who Called Him a ‘Criminal,’ but His Legal Horizon Darkens

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