A New Yorker who sat on the jury that found two Trump Organization companies guilty of criminal tax fraud has revealed how the panel referred to the former president as “Joe Smith” during deliberations.
The unnamed jurist told the Daily Beast that they had coined the pseudonym to avoid feelings of bias against Donald Trump.
“I constantly fought my knee-jerk belief that of course anything with the name Trump on it is crooked,” the juror told the Daily Beast.
After a six-week trial in Manhattan, the jury took just two days to convict the Trump Corporation, the Trump Payroll Corporation, and the Trump Organization’s long-time chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, of a 15-year scheme to defraud tax atuhorities by failing to report payroll taxes for top executives.
No members of the Trump family were defendants in the case, but Mr Trump’s name was repeatedly raised by prosecutors, according to reports.
The juror said prosecutors had clearly proven in court how the Trump Organization had illegally handed out benefits such as apartments, car leases and other perks to senior employees, according to the Daily Beast.
They still felt compelled to carefully weigh up each of the nine fraud counts to ensure they met the respective legal definitions, he said.
After guilty verdicts were reached on 6 December, New York district attorney Alvin Bragg described the prosecution as being “about greed and cheating”.
New York City residents on the jury had been angered at how the Trump Organization had cheated working people, the juror told the Daily Beast.
They discussed how city services like fixing potholes were impacted by the unpaid taxes during jury room deliberations.
The panelist told how he was reminded of Mr Trump’s bragging during a 2016 presidential debate with Hillary Clinton that he was “smart” not to pay any income taxes.
“That was his opinion of taxes and this was his company. Taxpayers are losers, in Trumpland,” the juror told the Daily Beast.
The Trump Organization faces a maximum fine of $1.61m when it is sentenced on 13 January.
Weisselberg, who cut a deal to testify against his former employer in exchange for a lenient sentence, told the trial he had received $1.5m in untaxed income in the form of an apartment, cars and tuition for his grandchildren.
He will be sentenced to five months in prison if the judge finds that he testified truthfully.
