The revelation came during the third day of sworn testimony by Trump Organization auditor Jeffrey McConney, whose appearance at the company’s criminal fraud trial in New York was delayed for more than a week after he tested positive for COVID-19 on 1 November. McConney was shown a page of Trump’s 2012 ledger — an accounting of expenses paid from Trump’s personal funds — provided to prosecutors by accounting firm Mazars USA. Under a ledger entry for a 2012 payment of more than $30,000 to a private school is the phrase “per Allen Weisselberg,” referring to the company’s former chief financial officer, who pleaded guilty in August to fraud and tax evasion. He then showed McConney a copy of the same 2012 personal page given by the Trump Organization to a Manhattan grand jury in 2021. The phrase “per Allen Weisselberg” appeared to be missing. “Someone can go into the system in the general ledger program, you can change the descriptions,” McConney testified. “You’re saying someone went in and deleted the phrase ‘per Allen Weisselberg’?” asked prosecutor Joshua Steinglass. “Yes,” McConey replied. Upon further questioning, McConney was unable to say who deleted the entry. Trump Organization senior vice president and controller Jeffrey McConney returns to court after a break in the company’s fraud trial, Nov. 1, 2022, in New York. Seth Wenig/AP The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in 2021 charged the Trump Organization and Weisselberg with more than a dozen criminal charges related to allegations that certain executives received tax-free “indirect” compensation in the form of luxury benefits, including Manhattan apartments and private schools. The company maintains its innocence on all charges. McConney was the first witness called by prosecutors to the stand, but his testimony was cut short during the second day of the trial on Nov. 1 when he tested positive for COVID. Earlier in the day, McConney testified that after Trump took office in 2017, the company’s longtime lawyer oversaw an internal review of the company’s tax practices, leading the Trump Organization to “do things differently.” . Steinglass then asked if the review led to changes in “some of the practices that led to these charges?” McConnie said, “Yes, sir.” Prosecutors allege that company executives for more than a decade used a variety of methods to “hide” the lavish benefits from tax authorities. One method prosecutors allege is that executives were paid in part each year as if they were independent contractors for various Trump Organization entities. McConney said Thursday that a Mazars accountant told him at one point not to pay a Trump Organization lawyer that way because “there was concern that (he) could lose his legal license.” “He made [the accountant] tell you he wasn’t a ‘fan’ of this practice for any employee?’ Steinglass asked. “I believe those are the words he used, yes,” McConney replied. McConney said Thursday that the company stopped that payment practice in 2017 or 2018. Asked by Steinglass if the “2017 purge” started because Trump became president, McConney said he thought it was a “coincidence.” “No one has specifically told me that this change happened because Mr. Trump became President Trump,” McConey said. In February, Mazars USA informed the Trump Organization that it was withdrawing a decade of annual financial statements it had prepared for Trump and his businesses, writing in a letter to the firm that they “should no longer be relied upon.” Mazars cited information that had emerged in law enforcement investigations for its decision to cut ties with the Trump Organization. Lawyers for the company said in their opening statements that there was no scheme to defraud the company, but instead that Weisselberg single-handedly hid that he didn’t pay taxes on benefits. Weiselberg, who agreed to testify in the case as part of his plea agreement, is expected to be called as a witness during the trial. He will be sentenced after the company’s trial.

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]