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By Jason Szep and Peter Eisler
(Reuters) – The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and a recently hired high-profile litigator questioned former Donald Trump attorney Michael Cohen on Thursday as part of a criminal investigation into the company’s trade relations former president, said two people familiar with the investigation.
The interview came after Mark Pomerantz, who has extensive experience in white collar and organized crime cases, joined District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s team investigating the Trump family business. Pomerantz began Feb. 2 as a special assistant prosecutor, said Danny Frost, a spokesperson for Vance.
The hiring of Pomerantz is part of a wave of recent activity in Vance’s investigation, including the issuance in recent days of a dozen new subpoenas, the sources said. One of them went to Ladder Capital Finance LLC, a major creditor used by Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, to fund the former president’s commercial real estate assets, the sources said.
Vance’s office also held interviews with Ladder staff, a source familiar with the matter said. Ladder did not respond to requests for comment.
The district attorney’s office has said little publicly about the investigation, but noted in court documents that it focused on “potentially widespread and prolonged criminal conduct” within the Trump organization, including alleged tampering files and insurance and tax fraud. It is the only known criminal investigation into Trump’s business practices.
Separately, New York State Attorney General Letitia James is conducting a civil investigation into whether Trump’s company falsely declared property values to secure loans and obtain economic and tax benefits.
Ladder issued the loans on several of Trump’s large commercial properties, including a $ 160 million mortgage on the Trump Building, a skyscraper in Manhattan’s financial district.
It’s unclear what was covered in Cohen’s Thursday interview with Pomerantz – his fifth with Vance’s office. But it speaks to an intense interest in Cohen’s intimate knowledge of the financial affairs of the Trump organization.
Cohen declined to comment. A Trump representative and a lawyer for the Trump organization did not respond to requests for comment. Frost, Vance’s spokesperson, declined to comment on areas of the investigation beyond Pomerantz’s appointment.
In court filings, the Trump organization has denied that the company has inflated its assets. Trump, a Republican, called the New York investigations politically motivated. Vance and James are both Democrats.
To look for anomalies among real estate transactions, Vance’s office retained forensic accountants from Washington-based FTI Consulting Inc., a person familiar with the investigation said. An FTI spokesperson declined to comment.
Cohen, who describes himself as Trump’s longtime mender, is being held at home and serving a three-year sentence on charges related to the awards he made in the 2016 presidential race to buy the silence of two women who claimed to have had dealings with Trump. .
Vance opened the investigation in 2018 to examine the alleged silence payments. The investigation has since expanded to include Trump’s conduct as a private business owner and whether the Trump organization has engaged in criminal tax evasion, among other charges.
PROMINENT LITIGATOR
Pomerantz, 69, was head of the criminal division of the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York from 1997 to 1999 and successfully oversaw a racketeering case against former Gambino family head John “Junior” Gotti .
As a private lawyer, Pomerantz has regularly represented large corporations and public officials in state and federal lawsuits, including cases brought by the United States Department of Justice. He has dealt with cases involving charges of professional misconduct, financial fraud, tax crimes and violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a federal law used to prosecute organized crime and ongoing criminal activity.
Pomerantz, who has taken time off from his law firm, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his involvement in the prosecutor’s investigation.
Cohen, a potential high-level witness for Vance, pleaded guilty in 2018 to charges in the Silence Case, as well as allegations of lying to Congress about negotiations over a Trump Tower project in Moscow, a project which never materialized.
Trump and Republicans in Congress have sought to undermine Cohen’s credibility by pointing out how he lied under oath. During his sentencing hearing, Cohen said he took “full responsibility” for his actions, but the payments were made “in coordination” and “under the direction” of Trump for the purpose. influence the outcome of the elections.
He also said Trump implicitly ordered him to lie about the Moscow project.
Trump accused Cohen of lying to reduce his prison sentence.
“I think Cohen may be more valuable than what people attribute to him,” said Daniel Alonso, Vance’s senior assistant from 2010 to 2014 and now in private practice.
“He clearly committed perjury. He has credibility issues. But the perjury he committed would have been at the behest of Donald Trump, at least tacitly. I don’t think calling Cohen a perjurer ends the story, as it opens the door to explaining why he perjured himself.
(Reporting by Jason Szep and Peter Eisler; Editing by Peter Cooney and Simon Cameron-Moore)
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