Former Trump Org chief financial officer confirms Trump penthouse overvaluation

The Trump Organization's former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, admitted in court Tuesday that he knew former President Donald Trump's Manhattan penthouse was smaller than the company reported, but claimed he didn't notice it was misstated in financial reports.

With Trump, his company and business associates facing trial on civil fraud charges. This may be the only time in Trump's life that he has reduced the size of one of his outhouses.

New York Attorney General Letitia James

filed a lawsuit against Trump and the Trump Organization alleging they inflated the value of their assets to get better deals and increase Trump's net worth, including falsely claiming Trump's three-level penthouse in Trump Tower was 30,000 square feet rather than its actual 10,996 square feet.

Weisselberg was asked about the size discrepancy at Tuesday's meeting, and he said he was aware of the actual size of the apartment, which was listed in a 1994 financial document. When asked why he reconciled the 2017 financial statement with the wrong square footage, Weisselberg said he didn't notice the discrepancy and "never thought about the apartment" because it "has always been a minor asset to me on the statement of financial condition. "

Weisselberg admitted that he confirmed to auditors Mazars USA that the information in the financial statements was accurate, but said he did not recall telling a Trump Organization employee to leave the figure "as is" after Forbes questioned the size of the penthouse, as charged by the attorney general.

Forbes reported the exact size of Trump's penthouse in 2017, and prosecutors repeatedly questioned Weisselberg about letters from Forbes editors and reporters questioning the discrepancy, with the former CFO saying he did not recall the details of those discussions.

Weisselberg, who is a defendant in the lawsuit and was previously convicted on separate fraud charges, admitted at trial that he signed a financial statement with the wrong square footage after Forbes alerted the company to the discrepancy.

The fraud trial, which is in its second week, is expected to continue through mid-December. Judge Arthur Engoron had previously ruled, before the trial began, that Trump and his company were liable for fraud because the estimates were misstated in financial documents, but the trial is still ongoing on other charges, such as insurance fraud and falsifying business records, and on whether the defendants knew they were committing fraud. Engoron had also already ordered Trump's business certifications revoked, but an appeals court delayed that order.

Trump and his attorneys strongly contradict the attorney general's arguments, saying the allegedly inflated estimates are subjective and that the false Trump Organization figures are based on Trump's real estate expertise. That defense extends to the square footage of Trump's penthouse, even though Trump's attorney Christopher Kais admitted at the hearing that the square footage is an objective figure. Engoron has so far rejected Trump's argument about square footage, writing in his decision before the trial that "a discrepancy of this magnitude, made by a real estate developer assessing his own living space over decades, can only be viewed as fraudulent. "