(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon will stand trial beginning Dec. 9 on charges he defrauded donors to an online effort to raise money for a wall along the U.S. southern border.
During a brief hearing on Tuesday, prosecutors said they would take three to four days to present evidence. Defense attorneys expected their case to last two days.
Bannon, who is currently serving a federal prison sentence for contempt of Congress, did not attend the hearing.
“Mr. Bannon was excused by the court,” Judge April Newbauer said.
Prosecutors sought a trial date in November, but Newbauer said that was too soon since Bannon will not be released from FCI Danbury until October.
“This trial was originally set for May. We were prepared to try it then,” Assistant District Attorney Dan Passesser said.
Bannon has pleaded not guilty and asked the court to dismiss the charges in January. Newbauer said she would rule on that request in late August.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has said Bannon defrauded donors to the nonprofit We Build the Wall by falsely promising that none of the money they donated would be used to pay the salary of the organization’s president, Brian Kolfage, while secretly funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to him by laundering it through third-party entities.
The campaign said We Build the Wall would use the money to privately construct the border wall — a central tenant of Trump’s 2016 campaign, and again on his current campaign — and prosecutors said a “central piece of the public messaging in support of this fundraising effort was that Kolfage was not taking a penny of compensation.”
Financial records show Kolfage was paid according to a secret salary arrangement — an upfront payment of $100,000 and monthly payments of approximately $20,000.
Kolfage was sentenced to 51 months in prison in April 2023 for his role in the fundraiser, which generated upward of $25 million in donations.
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