- A witness who works with prosecutors investigating Trump has hired an expert in financial crimes.
- Duncan Levin, a former top official in the DA office in Manhattan, represents Jennifer Weisselberg.
- The ex-wife of a key employee of the Trump Organization handed over documents to prosecutors.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
A collaborating witness in two investigations into former President Donald Trump’s finances hired a former top official in the office of the Manhattan District Attorney with expertise in financial crimes to represent her in those cases.
Jennifer Weisselberg told Insider earlier this fall she gave seven boxes of documents to investigators from the DA office in Manhattan and the New York Attorney General in the fall, but she still has a few in her possession that could be relevant to prosecutors. .
She appointed attorney Duncan Levin shortly after investigators contacted her in September to conduct his own, parallel investigation into the remaining documents.
“We have a number of boxes of material that we have not yet handed over to the prosecutors,” Levin said in an interview with Insider. “We are conducting our own internal investigation.”
Levin has worked closely with District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. in the past. He was the office’s asset seizure chief from 2011 to 2014 overseeing money laundering, corruption, terrorist financing, bank fraud and mob cases. He also worked for Vance in private practice while the two were at Manhattan law firm Morvillo Abramowitz LLC.
Weisselberg hired him because she wants to help the investigation as much as possible, Levin said.
“I know what I’m looking at,” Levin said. “We are basically looking for it methodically and we will hand over documents and information to law enforcement as it is useful.”
Apart from his job for Vance, Levin also had a federal judge and oversaw complex money laundering cases for the Brooklyn law firm.
Cyrus R. Vance Jr., District Attorney in Manhattan, in New York Criminal Court in 2020.
Jeenah Moon / Getty Images
Both the Manhattan DA office and the Attorney General’s office in New York are analyzing the personal finances of the Trump organization and Trump and apparently looking to see if they are misrepresenting the value of assets to pay little tax. while getting favorable terms for loans.
Weisselberg was married between 2004 and 2018 to Barry Weisselberg, the son of the chief financial officer of Trump organization Allen Weisselberg. Allen Weisselberg also manages the finances of the Trump family. Prosecutors in Manhattan are “turning around” him to cooperate, Jennifer Weisselberg told Insider. Barry Weisselberg remains a major Trump organization in its own right, running the Trump-run Wollman Rink in Central Park.
Jennifer Weisselberg said she received a large box of documents about Barry’s finances and the Trump organization’s finances through her divorce lawsuit. It contains bank account information, property records and credit card records, Levin said.
The properties shared between Jennifer and Barry Weisselberg extend beyond the former couple’s prosecutors for the Trump Parc East apartment, Levin said. Investigators have previously looked at that apartment that Donald and Melania Trump gave them as a wedding gift because Barry Weisselberg may have miscategorized it in tax returns, Bloomberg News reports.
Trump motivated the investigation as political, and Allen Weisselberg’s attorney declined to comment.
In an earlier interview, Weisselberg said that the Trump organization exercises some control over her life through the compensation of her husband. She said it would be paid for the education of her children and the housing of her family rather than giving her husband regular raises.
“They want you to do crimes and not talk about it and not go,” she said. “It’s so controlling.”