Hmmmm, interesting? Vanessa Trump hires CRIMINAL defense attorney for Donald Jr. divorce (Updated)

[kpete]

Last edited Fri Mar 16, 2018, 05:53 PM - Edit history (2)

Vanessa Trump hired a criminal defense attorney to represent her in her divorce from Donald Trump Jr. just as special counsel Robert Mueller subpoenaed the president’s family business, The Post has learned.

White Plains, NY-based lawyer David Feureisen is representing Vanessa Trump, according to paperwork filed in Manhattan Supreme Court late Thursday.

Feureisen is best known for securing the release of a New York man named Anthony DiSimone from federal prison in 2007 after a judge overturned a murder conviction related to a bar fight in 1994.

Vanessa and Don Jr. claimed in a joint statement that their split after 12 years of marriage was not acrimonious.

“It’s a curious choice if it’s an amicable separation,” Manhattan family law expert Bonnie Rabin said of Vanessa’s attorney.

“If it’s an amicable situation, you wouldn’t be highlighting the criminal aspect,” noted Rabin, who is not involved in the case.




https://pagesix.com/2018/03/16/vanessa-trump-hires-criminal-defense-attorney-for-donald-jr-divorce/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=P6Twitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow


UPDATED BECAUSE OF NEW INFO:

1. So the Page 6 story that Vanessa Trump hired a "criminal defense attorney" is BS.

I looked into it and David Feureisen does as much civil work as criminal work and regularly handles divorce cases in New York







MORE:

Link to tweet

[Angry Dragon]

1. She is trying to stay out of jail

[dalton99a]

2. Yep

[cstanleytech]

34. That or she is trying to position herself to protect any current and or future assets she might be

granted in the divorce.

[TheBlackAdder]

67. A criminal defense attorney--hinting she might know/participate/get dragged into his illegal shit!

Heck, she might have knowingly signed a few false documents to secure loans, possibly overstating income.

Donny Jr. is getting investigated, which could turn up illegal shit that she did in the marriage too.

"Donny, you promised me that no one would ever find out!"

[Tatiana]

3. She, too, committed a crime and is afraid she might get indicted.

What did she do for her husband and/or father-in-law?

I hope for her kids' sake that she is willing to cooperate with Mueller.

[enid602]

76. Guilty

I find her guilty of First Degree assholism. Just for marrying into that pack.

[jberryhill]

4. Even if one is amicably dividing various assets

...then one would want to be sensitive to assets for which the assumption thereof would have potential criminal liability issues.

[PJMcK]

7. What would Vanessa's liability be...

...if she got some money in her divorce settlement that was criminally obtained? Would she have to forfeit it? Would she have any criminal liability? My questions are probably too broad for a concise answer but I'm curious.

[marylandblue]

11. If she didn't do the crime, she wouldn't go to jail

But she might have to pay back the money. So any deal would have to be structured to protect her assets.

[PJMcK]

15. Good insight

Thanks!

[jberryhill]

17. It would depend on what she knew

If my wife has a habit of robbing banks and giving me cash gifts, then one might reasonably suspect I knew where the cash was coming from.

[marylandblue]

20. Well my wife just tells me she makes cash withdrawals

from her inheritance. Apparently she had a rich uncle who loved her very much although they only met once when she was a baby.

[jberryhill]

41. What I can't figure out about this family...

Is how they manage to avoid the routine scrutiny I get.

I have a law practice and am on retainer to various clients, including some abroad. Nothing fishy, just mundane legal work.

In some sort of "tripwire" review of foreign transactions, someone noticed that at the beginning of each month for quite some time, I would receive a payment from abroad, transfer a portion of that to a personal account of mine, and then transfer that money to a woman in the US.

The woman in question is my wife's daughter from a previous marriage, she's in school, and we send her a monthly stipend.

So in the course of "just following up on some transactions", a person from the bank asked "what is this monthly payment to your business account for?" I said that is the monthly retainer I receive from client X to attend to their legal matters.

"Okay. Who is (my stepdaughter's name)?"

I guess what bothered me was the tone of the question, but I flipped right out. She had been asked to ask that question because some nitwit somewhere thought they had found some kind of sneaky payment I was making to an unrelated woman for her personal maintenance, as if I had a mistress or something.

[mr_lebowski]

47. More like some mooslim sleeper cell I'm betting ... they wouldn't give a crap bout a mistress.

[jberryhill]

55. I suppose

In my momentary sense that they were insinuating something, I lost my cool for a few seconds.

My bank files the appropriate FINCEN paperwork, and duly follows up on foreign transactions, regularly. I'm impressed that the system works as well as it does, and I can certainly understand why they do it. Because investigational holds can be placed on wire transfers, I've gotten used to routinely building in contract clauses to the effect of "there might be a delay for this sort of thing" if the parties are keyed up about timing.

Even on domestic transactions, a payment for a low multi-million dollar deal was received in my trust account, held for a period while the parties performed their obligations, and then released to the other party. When we put in the wire transfer request, the regional manager of a fairly large bank called me up personally to ask some general questions about "what sort of transaction is this", so that he could tick the box on the appropriate form.

My business is relatively small potatoes, and this comes up often enough that I wonder how larger organizations that are doing actual scummy stuff manage to avoid similar scrutiny.

Take the Manafort indictment, for example. The activity in that thing is astounding to me. How he thought he was going to get away with it, is as amazing to me as the fact that if he didn't get involved in the Trump campaign, he probably WOULD have gotten away with it.

Either I'm doing business with the wrong financial institutions, or I was born with astoundingly different luck-of-the-draw than Paul Manafort.

[mr_lebowski]

57. There may be some kind of accounting in the system for 'what is typical' and in Manaforts case

Total guess on my part, but the amounts involved in the transactions and their sources had perhaps been checked up on and approved in the past, and are not that large in scope relative to the scale he would typically operate, so flags weren't raised. The algorithms are probably pretty damn sophisticated is my guess. They kinda have to be.

[marylandblue]

52. They have a lot of business dealings

some legit, some not. As long as you can disguise the illegitimate deals as legitimate, nobody will look too closely. An occasional closer look can be finessed, bribed or intimidated. Until you run in to today's Elliot Ness.

[jberryhill]

56. I guess so

I just can't imagine being Paul Manafort and thinking "nobody is ever gonna notice this shit". But I wouldn't dream of trying to hide a dollar offshore and using it to buy a candy bar in the US, let alone tens of millions of transactions for... Jesus... suits, jewelry, cars, home renovations, etc.

[dixiegrrrrl]

70. Mamfort hid his money this way:

MANAFORT and GATES generated tens of millions of dollars in income as a result of their Ukraine work.
In order to hide Ukraine payments from United States authorities, from approximately 2006 through at least 2016,
MANAFORT and GATES laundered the money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships, and bank accounts.

They funneled millions of dollars in payments into foreign nominee companies and bank accounts, opened by them and their accomplices in nominee names and in various foreign countries, including Cyprus, Saint Vincent, the Grenadines (Grenadines), and the Seychelles.
MANAFORT and GATES hid the existence of the foreign companies and bank accounts, falsely and repeatedly reporting to their tax preparers and to the United States that they had no foreign bank accounts.

More details here, in the The 12-count Manafort and Gates indictment.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/10/30/the-paul-manafort-and-rick-gates-indictment-annotated/?utm_term=.48b434892326

edited to add how they paid their bills:
spent millions of dollars on luxury goods and services for himself and his extended family
through payments wired from offshore nominee accounts to United States vendors

[sprinkleeninow]

79. Brazen. (no text)

[cilla4progress]

66. Well, are you a

Mob boss? Resources at your disposal?

Didn’t think so. 😉

[Sophia4]

39. Protecting assets may be what the whole divorce is about.

I'm not claiming that is true, but it is a possibility to consider.

Maybe they really have irreconcilable differences, but money must be a big concern since they have five children and Don, Jr. may be in big trouble. Just the money for lawyers could be a shocker.

She needs to protect her children. And we don't know what went on in their marriage. Maybe the divorce is amicable, and maybe this lawyer is just a family friend in her view. It may be she would have hired him anyway in spite of his background in criminal law.

[Blueplanet]

75. Agree - Divorce may be a way to protect assests

Don Jr. and his wife may have decided that filing for a divorce may protect his wife and children from losing some of their assets.
They have five young children. Unless Don Jr. has been unfaithful, why file for divorce at this time?

[jberryhill]

12. That's the general idea

They are valid questions, and those questions are why one would want to have someone with a background in white collar crime in order to obtain answers to them, particularly if one knew they might be the proceeds of a crime.

[PJMcK]

16. Inquiring minds want to know!

(wink)

[angrychair]

21. So in your opinion

Is there a mundane reason to hire a criminal defense attorney in a uncontested divorce? Or does duch a move imply a pretext of things to come (i.e. Mueller’s recent legal actions on trump organization)

[jberryhill]

31. There is nothing about a Trump divorce which I would characterize as mundane

But if one is divorcing a Trump, and if one had been a party to various asset-hiding shenanigans, then it strikes me as reasonable to hire someone with relevant background to minimize one's potential exposure.

[Sophia4]

42. But maybe the lawyer is just someone she trusts who happens to be a criminal

lawyer. Maybe the lawyer and she think the divorce will be a slam dunk, and she just needs someone to read the papers and sign off. And maybe this lawyer makes a good impression on judges and the public. This divorce will be quite public so appearances may be important to her.

[jberryhill]

58. There's that

The general public impression seems to be that there are "criminal lawyers", "divorce lawyers", etc., when the reality is that while lawyers may have particular areas in which they usually practice, or experience in particular areas, outside of a very few for-real-certified-specialties (patents, admiralty) a bar license is an open invitation to the buffet. Of course, lawyers have an obligation not to take work if they are not competent to do that particular work.

But it is always a treat when opposing counsel has some kind of general business litigation background and thinks they are going to master one's own picayune specialty.

The flipside of this is when someone thinks the lawyer who, say, did their real estate transaction, is a fine pick for trademark litigation.

[Sophia4]

65. Good points! I'm just always trying to look for the pretty picture behind it all.

Then I have to shake myself and get realistic.

We don't really know why she picked this lawyer, but chances are good that there is some criminal aspect that scares her.

Five children -- money even for someone very wealthy is a concern.

And he may have his hidden in all kinds of nefarious holes in the wall. She may have hired him to retrieve all that hidden wealth.

He probably has the most expensive, experienced attorneys at his beck and call.

I'm sure you have seen some pretty nasty stuff in this world. Uggggh!

Then there is that nagging question: who gets the children?

A criminal lawyer might be the best support in the world when you get down to some of the issues and all the money in that situation.

[Ligyron]

71. Or she is in on a bunch of illegal shit Jr. pulled and was a willing participant.

If nothing else, I'll bet she knows where some bodies are buried.

[erronis]

59. I like the title of your post without the subsequent text. "... who happens to be a criminal"

Sometimes a mob family only knows criminals. They don't trust any straight ones (lawyers, doctors, bodyguards) for good reasons.

[Sophia4]

62. I'm just an incurable idealist, optimist. Gets me through tough times, but the cynics

here are probably right. I'm realistic enough to admit that.

[Sophia4]

68. Then there is this possibility. I'm not claiming it is the reason, but who knows?

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142015570

[mia]

5. Maybe she plans on spilling the beans. n/t

[poboy2]

6. Vanessa, call Mr. Mueller. -nt

[beachbum bob]

29. she is leveraging her knowledge of the trump family skeletons to GTFU of the marriage AND have an

immediate settlement and divorce....something no trump ex-wife has gotten on THEIR terms ever. She is one shrewd gal....AND, spousal privilege ends with the marriage...so sho can be subpoenaed to appear in front of Muellers grand jury and FORCE to answer or face contempt charges.

[mr_lebowski]

50. You sure that communications while husband & wife become non-privileged post-divorce? All states?

Seems kinda weird ... does that happen when you fire your lawyer too?

[beachbum bob]

73. no, does not apply to a lawyer you have paid/on retainer.

I am pretty sure spousal privilege ends when marriage ends...a spouse can ALWAYS freely testify regardless against their spouse. They can't be "forced" to be under the "priviledge". When priviledge goes, an ex-spouse can be brought before a Grand Jury. Thats why you don't see a lot of "ex-wives" from mafia marriages, period.

[Sophia4]

60. You are probably right as are some of the other DUers who are being more cynical

than I. But I always wish the world were a better place.

Unfortunately . . . .

[Sanity Claws]

8. She knows assets will be seized in criminal proceedings

A good criminal attorney may help her divorce attorney figure out the best way for her to retain some assets, despite criminal seizure and forfeiture of jointly held assets.

[jberryhill]

14. Yep

You put it more clearly than I did.

[janx]

9. Good heavens.

I could not have cared less about Trumpian divorce news initially. This changes things. Something's coming down the pike!

[triron]

13. I think you are onto something.

[erronis]

61. Time to buy a t.v. and stock up on popcorn! Last show I watched like this was Dallas.

[C_U_L8R]

10. It would not be surprising.

If Junior and family buried some dicey financials in Vanessa's name.
That would be just like a Trump.

[marylandblue]

18. Good point, a lot of criminal families do that

They have the wife sign stuff and she doesn't even know what she is signing. Then she really might have committed a crime without knowing it.

This also could explain why Melania stays.

[trixie2]

22. nods in agreement.

[Hekate]

27. There you have it

[getagrip_already]

32. even signing her tax return could expose her to criminal liability......

if there will be any tax fraud charges, and her name is on the returns, she could be charged.

I guess she wants to distance herself through the divorce, but that could be messy

[PdxSean]

19. Spousal privilege go bye-bye?

[trixie2]

23. Ooooooh! Good one!

[patricia92243]

24. Is it the normal way of doing things to go to the state Supreme Court to get a divorce? I

I realize different states do things their own way, but the state Supreme court seems like a lot to me.

[Lindsay]

30. In New York,

the Supreme Court is a trial court with both civil and criminal jurisdiction.

(I thought I remembered that from all my watching of Law & Order, but I checked Wikipedia to be sure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Supreme_Court

[leftynyc]

44. Yup

Highest court in NY is Court of Appeals.

[B2G]

25. We don't know why she made that choice.

Could be a number of reasons, including a friend or someone she trusts. Many lawyers handle diverse cases.

Interesting, but not jumping to any conclusions just now.

[dameatball]

26. Yup. Trump's tend to value trust and/or loyalty over expertise. But who knows?

[erronis]

63. Yup. Trust the don and fealty. Expertise - that's for reality t.v. shows.

[sprinkleeninow]

77. We shall see what manner of business 'acumen' the 'd'

possesses when this plays out.

[flying_wahini]

28. Or maybe Don Jr. is going thru the motions of divorce to protect assets for himself.

Even if divorced they could share the remains...

[infullview]

33. I was thinking something similar.

It could be a divorce of convenience so she can shelter half of whatever he has before the NY AG's office seizes the rest via RICO asset forfeiture.

[Paladin]

35. I hope the entire process is followed by the media and reported on, in detail.

If it's something that'll make Don Jr. look worse, I'm for full, gruesome disclosure.

[smirkymonkey]

36. This is getting interesting.

I so want to see the entire House of Trump crumble to the ground. Let this be the start of it.

[BadGimp]

37. getting ready...

v

[Bernardo de La Paz]

38. Could be crim atty to claw back div settlement proceeds from RICO seizures that may be coming. . .nt

[erronis]

64. Good luck with that! That attorney will make a ton of money - if s/he ever gets paid.

[kimbutgar]

40. Shes taking the money and running because she knows Junior is in trouble

Rat jumping off a sinking ship.

[WhiteTara]

43. There is also speculation that she takes the assets

and they remain hidden and then they can share the loot later.

[sprinkleeninow]

49. 'Loot'!

One Halloween a friend gave us some candy in a "Loot Bag". 😆

[WhiteTara]

74. She's really getting a loot bag from junior

[sprinkleeninow]

78. One of the 'o's in loot can be changed to a 'u'. 😝

[sprinkleeninow]

45. Santa Baby and The Easter Bunny fund my extra curricular account.

Ooh là là. 🍷🍧🍬💄💅👚👜👠💍🏖

😆🤣

P.S. Just when you thot it couldn't get any more whack, here's them. What a family worthy of emulation. 🤐

[sprinkleeninow]

48. This was intended as a reply to MarylandBlue.

I yam sleep deprived. Apologies.

[mn9driver]

46. Its all about the money.

Divorce lawyers have a great deal of experience and expertise in dividing up assets and income between divorcing spouses.

Very few have experience and expertise in protecting those divided assets from being forfeited in a criminal prosecution. You need a criminal defense attorney for that.

[ffr]

51. Probably to split the assets before her portion is devalued.

It's a financial hedge.

[bigtree]

54. or seized and confiscated

...in a money-laundering prosecution.

[bigtree]

53. knew this was related to his criminal investigation

...by Mueller.

She's trying to distance herself from his felony financial crimes.

[justgamma]

69. I thought they couldn't compel a spouse

to testify against the other. No longer a spouse, now they force her to testify, maybe?

[Xipe Totec]

72. Take Pinkman's advice - hire a criminal... lawyer