New York
Who Are Key Players in the Trump Manhattan Criminal Trial?
On Monday, Donald J. Trump is set to become the first former U.S. president to face a criminal trial. Manhattan prosecutors charged him last year with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, accusing Mr. Trump of covering up a sex scandal with the porn star Stormy Daniels around the 2016 presidential election. Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has pleaded not guilty.
The Court
Justice Juan M. Merchan
Presiding Judge
Justice Merchan presided over the 2022 criminal trial and conviction of the Trump Organization and some of its executives, fining the company the maximum penalty of $1.6 million. A 17-year veteran of the court, Justice Merchan has been subject to verbal attacks by Mr. Trump, who has also targeted the judge’s family.
Central Figures
Stormy Daniels
Porn Director, Producer and Actress
Just before the 2016 election, Ms. Daniels received a $130,000 hush-money payment from Mr. Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, in exchange for her silence about her story of a 2006 sexual encounter with Mr. Trump. The former president has denied the encounter, and has frequently attacked Ms. Daniels since the payment became public in 2018.
Michael Cohen
Former Trump Lawyer and “Fixer”
Mr. Cohen has said that the hush-money payment he made to Ms. Daniels was paid at Mr. Trump’s direction. He has also said that Mr. Trump covered up the deal through a series of reimbursements to Mr. Cohen, in order to avoid a sex scandal during and after the 2016 election. Mr. Cohen later served time in prison after pleading guilty in 2018 to federal campaign finance charges related to the hush-money scheme. Mr. Trump has called Mr. Cohen a liar and tried to block his testimony in this case by accusing him of perjury.
David Pecker
Former Publisher of The National Enquirer
Leading up to the 2016 election, Mr. Pecker, who was the publisher at the time, agreed to work with Mr. Cohen to suppress negative stories about Mr. Trump, a practice known in the tabloid world as “catch and kill.” Mr. Pecker, a longtime Trump friend, brokered the hush-money deals with Ms. Daniels and a former former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump.
Dylan Howard
Former Editor of The National Enquirer
In the effort to bury negative stories about Mr. Trump before the 2016 election, Mr. Howard, who was the editor at the time, connected Mr. Cohen with a lawyer for Ms. Daniels, setting the hush-money deal in motion.
Karen McDougal
Former Playboy Model
As part of the scheme to suppress negative stories about Mr. Trump before the 2016 election, American Media Inc., the parent company to the National Enquirer, paid Ms. McDougal $150,000 for the rights to her story of an affair with Mr. Trump in order to bury it. Mr. Trump denies the affair.
Keith Davidson
Stormy Daniels’s Lawyer
In October 2016, Mr. Davidson negotiated the hush-money deal with Mr. Cohen to buy Ms. Daniels’s silence about the sexual encounter she said she had with Mr. Trump.
Hope Hicks
Former Trump Spokeswoman
Ms. Hicks, who worked on Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign and served in the White House until 2018, spoke with Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen in 2016 on the day they learned that Ms. Daniels wanted money for her story, and again with Mr. Cohen on the day after he wired the $130,000 payment to Ms. Daniels’s lawyer.
Jeffrey McConney
Former Trump Organization Controller
Mr. McConney facilitated payments to Mr. Cohen – which served as reimbursement for the $130,000 paid to Ms. Daniels – that were falsely described as “legal expenses” in Trump Organization payment records.
Alan Garten
Trump Organization Chief Legal Officer
Mr. Garten previously told a federal judge that payments by the Trump Organization to Mr. Cohen in 2017 were to reimburse him for a settlement payment to Ms. Daniels, and to compensate him for private counsel services for Mr. Trump.
Prosecution Team at Manhattan District Attorney’s Office
Alvin Bragg
District Attorney
Out of various Trump investigations he inherited when he took office in 2022, Mr. Bragg zeroed in on the hush-money deal and resurrected the case, leading last year to Mr. Trump’s first criminal indictment. Now Mr. Bragg is set to be the first criminal prosecutor to put Mr. Trump on trial, which has made him a frequent target of the former president’s attacks.
Matthew Colangelo
Senior Counsel
A former high-ranking official at the New York attorney general’s office, Mr. Colangelo previously led a civil inquiry into Mr. Trump and oversaw an investigation into the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which led to its dissolution.
Joshua Steinglass
Senior Trial Counsel
After helping to lead the effort to convict the Trump Organization in 2022, Mr. Steinglass was recently added to the prosecution team. He typically prosecutes significant violent crime and secured a conviction against two Proud Boy extremists for a violent brawl in 2019.
Christopher Conroy
Investigations Division Senior Advisor
Mr. Conroy, who has been at the Manhattan district attorney’s office since 1996 and previously led the major economic crimes unit, has worked on the investigations into Mr. Trump longer than any other member of the team.
Rebecca Mangold
Assistant District Attorney
She joined Mr. Bragg’s major economic crimes unit in 2022 after clerking for a U.S. District Court judge in New Jersey and working in private practice on criminal and regulatory investigations.
Defense Team
Todd Blanche
Trump Lawyer
A former federal prosecutor, Mr. Blanche left a large law firm to defend Mr. Trump in this case. He is also representing Mr. Trump in the federal classified documents case and the federal election interference case.
Susan Necheles
Trump Lawyer
A lawyer for Mr. Trump since 2021, Ms. Necheles also represented the Trump Organization in the criminal tax fraud trial in Manhattan, which resulted in a conviction and $1.6 million fine. She previously represented defendants in major organized-crime and public-corruption cases.
Gedalia M. Stern
Trump Lawyer
As a law partner to Ms. Necheles, Mr. Stern also defended the Trump Organization in its criminal tax fraud trial and has previously represented clients charged with bribery, fraud and conspiracy.
The newest addition to Mr. Trump’s trial team, Mr. Bove served as a federal prosecutor in New York before turning to private practice where he has represented defendants charged with white-collar crimes.
New York
Video: Adams’s Former Chief Adviser and Her Son Charged With Corruption
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transcript
Adams’s Former Chief Adviser and Her Son Charged With Corruption
Ingrid Lewis-Martin, who resigned as Mayor Eric Adams’s chief adviser, and her son, Glenn D. Martin II, were charged with taking $100,000 in bribes from two businessmen in a quid-pro-quo scheme.
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We allege that Ingrid Lewis-Martin engaged in a long-running bribery, money laundering and conspiracy scheme by using her position and authority as the chief adviser of — chief adviser to the New York City mayor, the second-highest position in city government — to illegally influence city decisions in exchange for in excess of $100,000 in cash and other benefits for herself and her son, Glenn Martin II. We allege that real estate developers and business owners Raizada “Pinky” Vaid and Mayank Dwivedi paid for access and influence to the tune more than $100,000. Lewis-Martin acted as an on-call consultant for Vaid and Dwivedi, serving at their pleasure to resolve whatever issues they had with D.O.B. on their construction projects, and she did so without regard for security considerations and with utter and complete disregard for D.O.B.’s expertise and the public servants who work there.
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New York
Read the Criminal Complaint Against Luigi Mangione
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
V.
LUIGI NICHOLAS MANGIONE,
Defendant.
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, ss.:
Original
AUSAS: Dominic A. Gentile,
Jun Xiang, Alexandra Messiter
24 MAG 4375
SEALED COMPLAINT
Violations of
18 U.S.C. §§ 2261A, 2261(b), 924(j), and
924(c)
COUNTY OF OFFENSE:
NEW YORK
GARY W. COBB, being duly sworn, deposes and says that he is a Special Agent with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, and charges as follows:
COUNT ONE
(Stalking – Travel in Interstate Commerce)
1. From at least in or about November 24, 2024 to in or about December 4, 2024, in
the Southern District of New York and elsewhere, LUIGI NICHOLAS MANGIONE, the
defendant, traveled in interstate commerce with the intent to kill, injure, harass, intimidate, and place
under surveillance with intent to kill, injure, harass, and intimidate another person, and in the
course of, and as a result of, such travel engaged in conduct that placed that person in reasonable
fear of the death of, and serious bodily injury to, that person, and in the course of engaging in such
conduct caused the death of that person, to wit, MANGIONE, traveled from Georgia to New York,
New York for the purpose of stalking and killing Brian Thompson, and while in New York,
MANGIONE stalked and then shot and killed Thompson in the vicinity of West 54th Street and
Sixth Avenue.
(Title 18, United States Code, Sections 2261A(1)(A) and 2261(b)(1).)
COUNT TWO
(Stalking – Use of Interstate Facilities)
2. From at least in or about November 24, 2024 to in or about December 4, 2024, in
the Southern District of New York and elsewhere, LUIGI NICHOLAS MANGIONE, the
defendant, with the intent to kill, injure, harass, intimidate, and place under surveillance with intent
to kill, injure, harass, and intimidate another person, used an electronic communication service and
electronic communication system of interstate commerce, and a facility of interstate or foreign
commerce, to engage in a course of conduct that placed that person in reasonable fear of the death
of and serious bodily injury to that person, and in the course of engaging in such conduct caused
the death of that person, to wit, MANGIONE used a cellphone, interstate wires, interstate
New York
Video: Luigi Mangione Is Charged With Murder
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transcript
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Luigi Mangione Is Charged With Murder
The first-degree murder charge branded him a terrorist over the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive, Brian Thompson.
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We are here to announce that Luigi Mangione, the defendant, is charged with one count of murder in the first degree and two counts of murder in the second degree, including one count of murder in the second degree as an act of terrorism for the brazen, targeted and premeditated shooting of Brian Thompson, who, as was as you know, was the C.E.O. of UnitedHealthcare. This was a frightening, well-planned, targeted murder that was intended to cause shock and attention and intimidation. It occurred in one of the most bustling parts of our city, threatening the safety of local residents and tourists alike, commuters and businesspeople just starting out on their day.
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