A prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, disputed the defense’s contention that he had to prove that Mr. Weisselberg intended to benefit the Trump Organization — or show that the corporation did indeed benefit. Nevertheless, he said, there was “ample evidence of both.”
Mr. Weisselberg, for example, testified that the perks saved the company money in taxes. Mr. Weisselberg also subtracted the cost of some benefits from his overall compensation, essentially repaying the company.
Yet a defense lawyer, Alan S. Futerfas, noted that Mr. Weisselberg had repeatedly testified that he acted for his own benefit, not for the company or the Trump family. Prosecutors have not accused Mr. Trump, or anyone in his family, of taking part in the scheme.
On the witness stand, Mr. Weisselberg also admitted to betraying the company that had employed him for decades, and acknowledged that Mr. Trump did not authorize him to carry out the scheme. When Mr. Futerfas asked Mr. Weisselberg, “Were you reducing your compensation because you didn’t want to hurt the company?” He responded, “No, my intention was to save pretax dollars.”
When making his case to the judge last week, Mr. Futerfas also argued that the language of the New York law itself was so confounding that the case should be thrown out.
“All parties have struggled to determine what those words mean; particularly in the context of this case,” he said, adding that it was “very difficult, almost impossible” to ascertain what had been intended by legislators when they wrote the law in the 1960s.
Adam S. Kaufmann, a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office for nearly two decades who oversaw white-collar cases as the chief of its investigations division, said the “in behalf of” issue seldom arose, because the actions of high-ranking officials in such cases almost always benefit a company.
“It’s not an issue that I recall seeing before,” Mr. Kaufmann said.
Lola Fadulu contributed reporting.