NEW YORK — An Upper West Side mom called for jury duty at the Trump Organization trial — whose kids went to prep school with Allen Weisselberg’s grandchildren — always wondered how the family afforded their life of luxury.
The 54-year-old lawyer, who declined to provide her name, was among the first New Yorkers dismissed from jury duty at the high-profile trial that kicked off Monday at Manhattan Supreme Court.
Central to the Manhattan district attorney’s case is luxury, untaxed “work” expenses that had no relation to the real estate business whose accounts Weisselberg oversaw for decades. That includes his grandkids’ private school tuition at Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School and a rent-free apartment overlooking Central Park for his son Barry’s young family. The long-serving chief financial officer pleaded guilty to 15 felonies last month.
The would-be juror said the DA wasn’t the only one suspicious of the Weisselbergs’ family budget.
“It was always weird — how are they affording living in that building? Living in a lavish building, having lavish birthday parties at the Trump ice skating rink. You kind of were like, what is going on? Even back then,” the dismissed juror said. “I had no idea.”
In a private meeting behind the courtroom walls, the prospective juror told Judge Juan Merchan and lawyers for the Trump companies that her daughter went to school with the Weisselberg kids.
She said Barron Trump, Trump’s youngest child, was a class ahead of her daughter at the tony Manhattan school, which teaches pre-kindergarten school children through age 12. She knew Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen from the school board.
“I think (Cohen) was waving in friends and family, and people who make donations and whatever,” the juror quipped, noting she never saw The Donald picking his son up from school.
“My husband would say he saw Melania quite a bit, and she was very beautiful.”
Granddad Weisselberg paid at least $49,000 annually for each of his grandchildren to attend the school. He also paid for their annual sleepaway camp fees of $25,000 and Hebrew school tuition of $2,200, the Daily News reported.
His son, Barry, managed the Trump Organization’s Wollman ice rink for 18 years. New York City ended its contract with the cash-only ice rink in Central Park and vintage carousel after the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.
Barry Weisselberg’s ex-wife Jennifer Weisselberg previously told The New York Daily News that she and Barry rarely reached into their own pockets, with her father-in-law paying for almost everything. She said Trump told her the corporate apartment they lived in was a wedding gift.
In deposition testimony from her 2018 divorce, which The Daily News News reported months before his father’s indictment, Barry said there was never an expectation of paying the money back. The youngest Weisselberg son described the largess as “financial assistance.”
Weisselberg’s plea deal requires him to testify at the trial about conspiring with Trump Org execs in the long-running tax evasion scheme. If his testimony satisfies prosecutors, they’ll agree to a jail term of five months on Rikers Island.
The juror said she put her hand up to disclose the conflict as soon as she heard Weisselberg’s name. The judge and lawyers queried her out of the presence of 131 other prospective jurors, who filed into court around 11 a.m.
Another person near her didn’t know anyone involved with the case, but he didn’t think he could be fair.
“An older man next to me said, ‘Is it enough if I hate Trump?’” she said. “They let him back out.”
Merchan estimates it will take a minimum of two weeks to find 12 unbiased New Yorkers to serve on the Trump Org jury. He expects the trial to last for five or six weeks.
The two Trump entities have pleaded not guilty and face significant financial penalties if convicted.
