What New York prosecutors’ hush money indictment against Donald Trump reveals | World News

Former President Donald Trump was indicted in court Tuesday on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records after prosecutors accused him of paying two women to suppress their accounts of having sex with him.

Here are some highlights from the indictment and statement of facts released by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office:

34 payments

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The indictment lists 34 first-degree felony counts of falsifying business records, each punishable by up to four years in prison. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

Each charge covers Trump’s personal records of payments to his former personal attorney Michael Cohen between February and December 2017, Trump’s first year in the White House.

According to Bragg, the payments were not for legal services, as they claimed, but to reimburse Cohen for a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign. Daniels said she and Trump had a sexual encounter in 2006, a year after he married his third wife, Melania Knauss.

Trump has denied having had contact with Daniels, but has acknowledged making the payments.

Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance charges related to the payments in 2018 and said he was acting at Trump’s direction.

cover up

Trump falsified the records while working with Cohen and others to cover a string of unflattering stories that threatened his 2016 presidential campaign, according to a separate legal document, titled Statement of Facts, that accompanies the indictment. In the process, he and others violated election laws, the statement of facts alleges.

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eyes and ears

In August 2015, tabloid publisher David Peck met Trump at Trump Tower shortly after he announced his run for president and offered to serve as the campaign’s “eyes and ears” for negative coverage, according to prosecutors And revise it before Cohen shows up. was published.

Peck, a former publisher of the National Enquirer and chief executive of American Media Inc (AMI), also agreed to publish negative stories about Trump’s rivals.

AMI acknowledged the arrangement in a 2018 non-prosecution agreement with the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

janitor’s story

In October or November 2015, Pecker learned that a former Trump Tower doorman said Trump had allegedly had a child out of wedlock and paid him $30,000 for the rights to the story. AMI later determined that the story was not true.

Karen McDougall

AMI paid $150,000 to buy the silence of a woman about her alleged affair with Trump, according to prosecutors. The unnamed woman matches the description of former Playboy model Karen McDougall, 52, who has spoken out about her relationship with Trump and her arrangement with AMI.

According to the allegations, Peck made the payment after discussing it with Cohen and Trump, with the understanding that Trump would reimburse him.

Trump and Cohen discussed repayment and made plans for it in a September 2016 recording. But Pecker declined to accept the money after speaking with the company’s lawyers.

stormy daniels

In October 2016, Trump was in hot water after the release of a 2005 video in which he made crude comments about women on the “Access Hollywood” TV show.

Around that time, Peck connected Cohen to a lawyer for Daniels, who said she also had an affair with Trump. The two sides agreed to pay $130,000, but Trump urged Cohen to delay the check until after the November election, when Daniels’ request would not affect the outcome.