Former U. S. president Donald Trump has been warned that he could be jailed for violating a gag order.
The judge handling the criminal trial, Juan Merchan, in a personal address to him, handed Mr Trump the warning, insisting that his action was an attack on the rule of law.
According to The New York Times, this will be the second time in two weeks that Mr Trump will be violating the order that bars him from attacking jurors.
“Because this is now the tenth time that this Court has found defendant in criminal contempt, spanning three separate motions, it is apparent that monetary fines have not and will not, suffice to deter defendant from violating this Court’s lawful orders,” Mr Merchan wrote in his order. “Defendant is hereby put on notice that if appropriate and unwarranted future violations of its lawful orders will be punishable by incarceration.”
Prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office slammed 77-year-old Mr Trump with 34 felonies, accusing him of coordinated falsification of business records related to the reimbursement.
They also accused the ex-president of directing his company to describe the payments as “legal expenses” from a retainer agreement, which according to them, did not exist.
Mr Trump, who pleaded not guilty to the charges and denied having sex with porn star Stormy Daniels, could face probation or as long as four years in prison if convicted.
Another former worker in one of Mr Trump’s businesses was under interrogation by prosecutors when they revealed the payment at the centre of the case against him.
The revelation showed the reimbursement of his longtime fixer, Michael Cohen, who helped him buy the silence of a porn star that claimed she once had sexual encounter with Mr Trump.
Mr Trump Organisation’s accounts payable supervisor, Deborah Tarasoff, confessed to sending checks to Mr Trump at the White House to sign.
This came after the company’s corporate controller, Jeffrey McConney, testified on Monday that most of the money to repay Mr Cohen came from Mr Trump’s personal bank account during his time in office as president of the United States.
Mr McConney had confessed about 11 invoices which prosecutors said were among moves to conceal the account of the porn star, during the twilight of the 2016 presidential campaign.
According to him, the Trump Organisation’s chief financial officer ordered him to reimburse Mr Cohen for the $130,000 he had paid out of his own pocket.
Mr Cohen was said to have received $420,000, a bonus and additional funds, with nine of the 11 payments coming from the personal account of Mr Trump.
However, Mr Trump’s lawyer, during cross examination of Mr McConney, sought to distance the former president from his company’s financial record-keeping.
