Tearing up as he testified, Donald Trump's former corporate controller said Tuesday he "gave up" on his longtime job because he was worn out by the company's legal woes. Jeffrey McConney was on the witness stand for a fourth day in six weeks at the ex-president's civil fraud trial when defense lawyer Jesus Suarez asked why McConney no longer works at the Trump Organization, the AP reports. McConney paused, took off his glasses, raised his hands in the air, wiped his eyes with tissues that were brought to him and started reflecting aloud about his more than 35 years at the company.
"I'm very proud of the work that I did," he said, then launched into a recitation of investigations and legal proceedings in which he's been subpoenaed or called to testify. "I just wanted to relax and stop being accused of misrepresenting assets for the company that I loved working for. I'm sorry," he testified, his voice trembling. McConney is among defendants in the trial in which New York Attorney General Letitia James says Trump and executives at his company fraudulently inflated his wealth on his financial statements, which were used to secure loans and insurance. Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, has deplored the case as a political attack by James, a Democrat. He contends the documents actually underestimated his net worth.
McConney worked at the Trump Organization from 1987 until this past February. He has testified that he retired and is receiving a total of $500,000 in severance payments. His exit came months after he was granted immunity to testify for the prosecution at the Trump Organization's New York criminal tax fraud trial, where he admitted breaking the law to help fellow executives avoid taxes on company-paid perks. The company was convicted and is appealing. At the current civil trial, McConney was called to testify last month by the attorney general's office and again this week by defense lawyers. He has testified about how he and other executives arrived at the asset values that James' office says were wildly high but that he says were legitimate.
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He disclosed, for example, that the estimate for the Trump Tower penthouse was increased by $20 million partly because of the value of Trump's celebrity. The triplex also was valued for years at three times its actual size—a discrepancy that McConney attributed to information from a colleague he believed "knew the property a lot better than I did." McConney said he valued Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida as though the property could be sold as a private home, though an agreement with the National Trust for Historic Preservation called for keeping the property a club, a status that yielded tax benefits for Trump. McConney testified Tuesday that he never intended to mislead anyone or to be inaccurate. "To be hit over the head every time with a negative comment over something is just really frustrating, and I gave up," he said, throwing up his hands.
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