The revelation came amid the second day of sworn testimony by Trump Organization auditor Jeffrey McConey, who was the first witness called by the government in the company’s criminal fraud trial in New York. McConney said the investigation was led by Sheri Dillon, a lawyer best known for a January 2017 news conference held by then-President-elect Donald Trump in which she and Trump displayed reams of documents they said were related. with his company taxes. McConney’s testimony was halted later Tuesday after he tested positive for COVID-19. The trial is expected to resume on Monday, November 7. Stacks of papers and files are seen as President-elect Donald Trump holds a news conference on January 11, 2017 in New York. DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images The Manhattan district attorney’s office in 2021 charged former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg and the company, through two corporate entities — the Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation — with more than a dozen criminal charges related to allegations that certain executives received tax-free “indirect workers compensation”. Weiselberg pleaded guilty in the case in August. The company maintains its innocence on all charges. Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Susan Hofiger said during her opening statements Monday that the company’s executives had been evading taxes for years, “but the evidence will show that when Donald Trump was elected president in late 2016, these companies finally had to clean up these scams. tax practices”. McConney said Tuesday that Dillon — a tax attorney at the Morgan Lewis law firm who worked for more than a decade on matters related to the Trump Organization — was brought in after Trump left the firm in 2017 to take over the presidency. A prosecutor asked if Dillon “basically instructed you to clean things up at the Trump Organization?” “He did,” McConney replied. He said the investigation resulted in a memorandum, which was completed either in late 2017 or early 2018. “I was instructed from here on out to do things differently,” McConney said. Dillon did not immediately respond to requests for comment. As McConney began to describe the memo, lawyers for the Trump Organization objected, citing attorney-client privilege, and the judge called a sidebar. The discussion of the memorandum was then limited. Prosecutors allege company executives used a variety of methods to “hide” luxury benefits from tax authorities dating back to at least 2005. Lawyers for the company said Monday in opening statements that it was only Weiselberg who was hiding that he didn’t pay taxes on benefits. Weiselberg is expected to be called as a witness during the trial. Weiselberg pleaded guilty in the case in August and agreed to testify as part of his plea deal. He will be sentenced after the trial, which is expected to last up to six weeks. McConney testified Monday that his personal attorney is being paid by the Trump Organization and that he met with the company’s lawyers on Sunday, among other things. Prosecutors’ request to treat him as a hostile witness was rejected by Judge Juan Merchan.

Graham Cates

Graham Cates is an investigative reporter covering criminal justice, privacy and information security issues for CBS News Digital. Contact Graham at [email protected] or [email protected]