NEW YORK: With former President Donald Trump’s tax returns finally in hand, a team of New York prosecutors led by a newly hired former mob-buster is sending out fresh subpoenas and meeting face-to-face with key witnesses, scrutinizing Trump’s business practices in granular detail.
Amid the swirl of activity, the Manhattan district attorney’s office is scheduled Friday to meet again with Trump’s longtime former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
It would be the eighth time he has spoken with investigators working for District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., dating to Cohen’s time in federal prison for tax evasion and campaign finance violations.
The person familiar with the inquiry wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the interview and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.
In a recent interview with Cohen, investigators asked questions about Trump’s Seven Springs estate as part of an inquiry into whether the value of the 213-acre Westchester County property was improperly inflated to reduce his taxes.
Investigators asked Cohen about individuals involved in the appraisal of the estate and benefits derived from its valuation, including a $21 million income tax deduction.
Cohen was released to home confinement last year amid coronavirus fears, and his recent meetings have been conducted via video conference.
Vance’s office declined to comment, as did Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis. A message seeking comment was sent to the Trump Organization.
Vance announced last week that he would leave office at the end of the year and not seek reelection, but in a memo to staff, he stressed that the investigation wouldn’t stop.
“The work continues,” Vance wrote, echoing his short statement after the US Supreme Court ruled last month that he could have Trump’s tax records.
Vance recently hired former mafia prosecutor Mark Pomerantz — who, as a federal prosecutor, oversaw the prosecution of Gambino crime boss John Gotti — as a special assistant district attorney to assist in the wide-ranging probe of Trump’s finances.
The inquiry, according to court filings, includes an examination of whether Trump or his businesses lied about the value of assets to gain favorable loan terms and tax benefits. The district attorney also is scrutinizing hush-money payments paid to women on Trump’s behalf.
After a lengthy legal battle, his office is now in possession of eight years of Trump’s tax records, including final and draft versions of tax returns, source documents containing raw financial data and other financial records held by his accounting firm.
Vance’s focus on Seven Springs involves an environmental conservation arrangement Trump made in return for a tax deduction at the end of 2015, following failed attempts to turn the property into a golf course and luxury homes.
Trump granted an easement to a conservation land trust to preserve 158 acres (60 hectares) and received a $21 million income tax deduction, equal to the value of the conserved land, according to records. The amount was based on a professional appraisal that valued the full Seven Springs property at $56.5 million as of Dec. 1, 2015.
That was a much higher amount than the evaluation by local government assessors, who said the entire estate was worth $20 million. Trump bought the property, including a palatial Georgian-style mansion that once belonged to the family of newspaper publisher Katharine Graham, for $7.5 million in 1995.
In a sign of prosecutors’ deepening interest in Seven Springs, Vance’s office has sent new subpoenas in recent weeks to local governments in the towns the property spans — Bedford, North Castle and New Castle — following up on an initial round of subpoenas issued in mid-December.
Vance’s office has also subpoenaed material from people who worked on projects to develop the property for Trump, including an engineer who said his duties involved presenting plans to the local planning board.
The engineer, Ralph Mastromonaco, said Wednesday that he received Vance’s subpoena in mid-February and promptly handed over the requested documents, including records of his work on the property and correspondence with the Trump Organization.
Mastromonaco was subpoenaed for similar material in December 2019 by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who also is investigating whether Trump and his company improperly inflated the value of his assets on annual financial statements in order to secure loans and obtain tax benefits.
“I really know absolutely nothing about this whole mess,” Mastromonaco said Wednesday.
Vance’s investigators have also peppered Cohen with questions about the role that Allen Weisselberg played as chief financial officer of Trump Organization.
Weisselberg’s attorney, Mary Mulligan, declined to comment Wednesday.
But it emerged in recent days that his former daughter-in-law, Jen Weisselberg, is cooperating with both Vance’s and James’ inquiries, according to her attorney.
“She will continue to cooperate fully with the various law enforcement agencies that are investigating her ex-husband’s family and the very powerful interests they represent,” her lawyer, Duncan Levin, said in a statement to AP. “Jennifer refuses to be silenced any longer by those who are conspiring to prevent her from sharing what she has learned over the past 25 years.”
Trump probe heats up as prosecutors get hold of ex-president’s tax returns
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Trump probe heats up as prosecutors get hold of ex-president’s tax returns
- Veteran mob-buster leads team of prosecutors in scrutinizing Trump's business practices
Scholz says Germany shares French ‘pain’ on Charlie Hebdo attack anniversary
BERLIN: Germany “shares the pain of our French friends,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Tuesday on the 10th anniversary of a deadly attack on French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that claimed 12 lives.
The “barbaric attack... targeted our common values of liberty and democracy — which we will never accept,” Scholz said in a post in French on X.
Charlie Hebdo has published a special edition to mark the anniversary that features a front-page cartoon with the caption “Indestructible!“
Eight editorial staff were among the dead, while a separate but linked hostage-taking at a Jewish supermarket in eastern Paris by a third gunman on January 9, 2015, claimed another four lives.
The bloodshed signalled the start of a dark period for France during which extremists inspired by Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group repeatedly mounted attacks that set the country on edge and raised religious tensions.
Hundreds of Afghans detained in Pakistan: Afghan embassy
ISLAMABAD: Afghanistan’s embassy in Pakistan said around 800 Afghans living in the capital have been detained by authorities, including some who are registered with the UN’s refugee agency.
It warned in a statement late on Monday that uncertainty around the visa process for Afghans in Pakistan has caused “troubling cases of arbitrary detention and deportation.”
Islamabad has cracked down on undocumented Afghans as political tensions with Kabul have increased, forcing more than 780,000 Afghans back across the border since the end of 2023 — including some who have lived in Pakistan for decades.
“The Embassy of Afghanistan expresses its deep concern over the recent detention of approximately 800 Afghan nationals in Islamabad,” it said on social media platform X.
“This has caused the tragic separation of families, including women and children, many of whom remain stranded in Pakistan.”
The statement said the number included 137 Afghans with pending visa extension requests or who are temporarily registered with the UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency.
The embassy was “alarmed by reports of unwarranted arrests, home searches, and extortion targeting Afghan nationals,” it said.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry has not responded to requests for comment.
More than 600,000 Afghans have fled to Pakistan since the Afghan Taliban regained control of Kabul in August 2021, including tens of thousands on the advice of Western nations with the promise of relocation.
Many are forced by embassies to wait for months in guest houses in Islamabad while their cases are processed and have reported a rise in harassment by police in recent weeks.
The Pakistan government said its deportation campaign is a bid to improve security after a rise in militancy in the border regions.
But Afghans say they are being targeted because of a political falling-out between Islamabad and Kabul.
“The Afghans in Pakistan awaiting immigration are going through so much pain,” Umer Ijaz Gilani, a lawyer who represents Afghans, told AFP.
Millions of Afghans have fled into Pakistan to escape successive conflicts over decades, becoming deeply ingrained in Pakistani society.
According to the UNHCR, Pakistan currently hosts some 1.5 million Afghan refugees and asylum-seekers, alongside more than 1.5 million Afghans of different legal statuses.
Pakistan has given a series of short-term extensions to Afghans with registered refugee status, currently due to expire in June 2025.
China attaches importance to Trump’s remarks on talks with Xi
BEIJING: China attaches “great importance” to the remarks of Donald Trump, the foreign ministry said in response to comments on Monday from the US President-elect saying he has been in talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping through their aides.
Trump had said he believed he and Xi will get along but it had to be a “two-way street,” repeating that China has been “ripping off” the US economically.
The ministry spokesperson did not confirm there were exchanges through the leaders’ aides but said that China and US have maintained communications through various means.
Man accused of burning woman to death on a New York City subway train is set to be arraigned
- Prosecutors say Zapeta lit the New Jersey native on fire on a stopped F train at Brooklyn’s Coney Island station on Dec. 22. Zapeta then fanned the flames
- The killing has renewed discussion about safety in the nation’s largest mass transit system even as crime in the subway remains relatively rare
NEW YORK: The man accused of burning a sleeping woman to death inside a New York City subway train is set to be arraigned Tuesday on murder and arson charges.
Sebastian Zapeta, 33, will appear in Brooklyn court in connection with the killing of Debrina Kawam, 57.
Prosecutors say Zapeta lit the New Jersey native on fire on a stopped F train at Brooklyn’s Coney Island station on Dec. 22. Zapeta then fanned the flames with a shirt before sitting on platform bench and watching as Kawam burned, they allege.
Prosecutors say Zapeta confirmed to police he was the man in surveillance photos and videos of the fire but said he drinks a lot of alcohol and did not recall what happened.
Zapeta, a Guatemalan citizen who authorities say entered the country illegally after being deported in 2018, faces multiple counts of murder as well as an arson charge. The top charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
He was previously arraigned on a criminal complaint, but in New York, all felony cases require a grand jury indictment to proceed to trial unless a defendant waives that requirement.
Prosecutors with Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez’s office announced Zapeta had been indicted in late December.
Zapeta’s lawyer didn’t respond to an email seeking comment Monday evening.
The killing has renewed discussion about safety in the nation’s largest mass transit system even as crime in the subway remains relatively rare.
Transit crime is down for the second straight year, with a 5.4 percent drop last year compared to 2023, according to data released by police Monday, which also showed a 3 percent overall drop in major crimes citywide.
Still, New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a Monday news conference discussing the statistics that riders simply “don’t feel safe.”
In response, she said the department will surge more than 200 officers onto subway trains and deploy more officers onto subway platforms in the 50 highest-crime stations in the city.
“We know that 78 percent of transit crime occurs on trains and on platforms, and that is quite obviously where our officers need to be,” Tisch said. “This is just the beginning.”
Powerful Tibet earthquake, near Nepal, kills at least 53
- 6.8-magnitude quake measured at 10km depth with Tingri as epicenter
- Southwestern China, Nepal and northern India are frequently hit by quakes
BEIJING/Katmandu: A magnitude 6.8 earthquake rocked the northern foothills of the Himalayas near one of Tibet’s holiest cities on Tuesday, Chinese authorities said, killing at least 53 people and shaking buildings in neighboring Nepal, Bhutan and India.
The quake hit at 9:05 a.m. (0105 GMT), with its epicenter located in Tingri, a rural Chinese county known as the northern gateway to the Everest region, at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles), according to the China Earthquake Networks Center. The US Geological Service put the quake’s magnitude at 7.1.
At least 53 people had been killed and 62 injured on the Tibetan side, China’s state-run news agency Xinhua reported.
Southwestern parts of China, Nepal and northern India are frequently hit by earthquakes caused by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates.
A magnitude 7.8 tremor struck near Katmandu in 2015, killing about 9,000 people and injuring thousands in Nepal’s worst ever earthquake. Among the dead were at least 18 people killed at the Mount Everest base camp when it was smashed by an avalanche.
Tuesday’s epicenter was around 80 km (50 miles) north of Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain and a popular destination for climbers and trekkers.
Winter is not a popular season for climbers and hikers in Nepal, with a German climber the lone mountaineer with a permit to climb Mount Everest. He had already left the base camp after failing to reach the summit, Lilathar Awasthi, a Department of Tourism official, said.
Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) said the tremors were felt in seven hill districts bordering Tibet.
“So far we have not received any information of any loss of life and property,” NDRRMA spokesman Dizan Bhattarai told Reuters. “We have mobilized police, security forces and local authorities to collection information,” he said.
Many villages in the Nepalese border area, which are sparsely populated, are remote and can only be reached by foot.
AFTERSHOCKS, DAMAGE
The impact of the temblor was felt across the Shigatse region of Tibet, home to 800,000 people. The region is administered by Shigatse city, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, one of the most important figures in Tibetan Buddhism.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said all-out search and rescue efforts should be carried out to minimize casualties, properly resettle the affected people, and ensure a safe and warm winter.
Villages in Tingri reported strong shaking during the quake, which was followed by dozens of aftershocks with magnitudes of up to 4.4.
Crumbled shop fronts could be seen in a video on social media showing the aftermath from the town of Lhatse, with debris spilling out onto the road.
Reuters was able to confirm the location from nearby buildings, windows, road layout, and signage that match satellite and street view imagery.
There are three townships and 27 villages within 20 km (12 miles) of the epicenter, with a total population of around 6,900, Xinhua reported. Local government officials were liaising with nearby towns to gauge the impact of the quake and check for casualties, it added.
Tremors were also felt in Nepal’s capital Katmandu some 400 km (250 miles) away, where residents ran from their houses.
The quake also jolted Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, and the northern Indian state of Bihar which borders Nepal.
So far, no reports of any damage or loss to property have been received, officials in India said.
