Trump Organization. The entities were found in criminal contempt and fined $4,000 before trial for tax evasion

CNN
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A Manhattan Criminal Court judge found the Trump Organization entities in criminal contempt for failing to comply with multiple grand jury subpoenas dating back to October 2020 and three court orders requiring them to provide required evidence before a final tax evasion lawsuit.

Judge Juan Merchan ordered the Trump Organization. Earlier in court, the judge said the entities paying the $4,000 fine for violations had been closed since his ruling last December, so there would be no bias against the defendants at trial.

It is not clear if the companies have actually paid the fines imposed a year ago, apart from fines that could reach $1.61 million in connection with the convictions of two members of the Trump Organization. comp

CNN has contacted the parties for comment.

Merchan took over at the end of the Trump Organization era. In the tax evasion trial, he said he would terminate the case once the jury had reached its verdict because he had concluded that the case was “a matter of public interest.”

A jury finally indicted the two entities — The Trump Company and The Trump Payroll Company — last week on all counts related to the Trump Organization’s schemes. Executives cheat on their personal taxes.

The order says Trump companies provided thousands of pages of documents as part of the discovery process, but failed to respond to key plaintiffs’ demands despite court orders.

Lawyers for Trump’s companies alleged they failed to comply in 2021 because the subpoenas were vague and the response time was “unreasonably short given the scope and breadth of the requests,” according to the court order.