Factbox-From Bragg to Tacopina: Who’s Who in Trump Hush Cash Case

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump is predicted in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday the place he’ll make historical past as the primary former president to be criminally charged in a case that may possible take greater than a 12 months to return to trial.

At concern is a $130,000 hush fee to an grownup movie star made within the waning days of the 2016 election marketing campaign. Allegedly the fee was hush cash paid to learn Trump’s presidential marketing campaign, to cowl up a 2006 sexual encounter.

Trump is predicted to enter a plea of not responsible.

Following are key gamers within the case.

Trump’s indictment has thrust New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg into the highlight. Bragg, 49, took workplace in January 2022, the primary Black particular person elected Manhattan District Legal professional. Raised in New York Metropolis’s Harlem neighborhood, Bragg determined to go to regulation college, he mentioned, after having a gun pulled on him six instances rising up, three of the instances by police.

The grownup movie star, Stormy Daniels, is an writer, director and media persona. She launched her personal actuality TV present, “Spooky Babes”, during which she searches haunted homes as a “paranormal investigator”, and he or she as soon as flirted with a U.S. Senate bid as a Democrat-turned-Republican.

Justice Juan Merchan is the veteran choose who serves on Manhattan’s legal courtroom presiding over the case.

Final 12 months Merchan oversaw a legal trial of the Trump Group that ended with the true property firm convicted by a jury of tax fraud and hit with fines, whereas one in every of its longtime executives, Allen Weisselberg, pleaded responsible and was despatched to jail.

Certainly one of Trump’s attorneys, Susan Necheles, as soon as represented Genovese crime household underboss Venero “Benny Eggs” Mangano and defended the Trump Group in a legal trial final 12 months during which the corporate was convicted of a scheme to defraud tax authorities.

One other Trump lawyer, Joe Tacopina, is a sharp-suited frequent cable information commentator who’s accustomed to litigating within the highlight of New York’s tabloids. He has represented rapper Meek Mill, former Yankees baseball star Alex Rodriguez and Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle.

The lawyer informed Reuters earlier than the indictment that he’s unafraid of controversial circumstances and that he and Trump have a relationship of “mutual respect”.

Tacopina can also be defending Trump in a defamation lawsuit from author E. Jean Carroll over Trump’s denial of Carroll’s declare that he sexually assaulted her within the Nineteen Nineties.

(Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington; Modifying by Heather Timmons; Modifying by Sonali Paul)

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