Posted BY: Frank Friday
One of the things I often have to remind people about, including lawyers who should know better, is that each state has its own unique laws and procedures. What is no big deal in most places may be a fiasco in another.
For Donald Trump, the upcoming New York “falsifying business records” charge he may be facing would be laughed out of court almost everywhere, as no money was stolen and no harm to anyone seems to have been done. Unfortunately for him, he is stuck in the Empire State. And as unfair as it sounds, I think Mr. Trump is in some real trouble.
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The plan the Manhattan D.A. has is to convict him on a trivial offense, then hope a vindictive judge will throw the book at him. This happens all the time to suspected Mafiosi in New York courts, and it may be what’s going on here.
Start with the supposed two-year statute of limitations on misdemeanors underlying the prosecution. It is expected that D.A. Bragg’s office will overcharge Mr. Trump, with several felonies, in part just to get around the two-year limit. But that may not even be necessary. Unfortunately, as many people are now discovering, the statute of limitations tolls for the time a defendant resides out of New York State, as Mr. Trump has the last six years. So the statute of limitations most likely won’t come into play.
