Donald Trump chose convicted felon to be senior adviser

Donald Trump tapped a man to be a senior business adviser to his property empire even after the man’s past involvement in a major Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme had become publicly known.

Portions of Trump’s relationship with Felix Sater, a convicted felon and government informant, have been previously known. Trump worked with the company where Sater was an executive, Bayrock Group LLC, after it rented office space from the Trump Organisation as early as 2003.

Sater’s criminal history was effectively unknown to the public at the time, because a judge kept the relevant court records secret and Sater altered his name. When Sater’s criminal past and Mafia links came to light in 2007, Trump distanced himself from Sater.

But less than three years later, Trump renewed his ties with Sater. Sater presented business cards describing himself as a senior adviser to Donald Trump, and he had an office on the same floor as Trump’s own office in New York’s Trump Tower, the Associated Press learnt through interviews and court records.

Trump said during an interview this week that he recalled only bare details of Sater.

“Felix Sater, boy, I have to even think about it,” Trump said, referring questions about Sater to his staff. “I’m not that familiar with him.”

Sater pleaded guilty in 1998 to one count of racketeering for his role in a $40 million stock fraud scheme involving the prominent Genovese and Bonanno crime families, according to court records.

Prosecutors called the operation a pump-and-dump scheme, in which insiders manipulated the price of obscure stocks and then sold them to hapless investors at inflated prices. Five years earlier, a New York state court had sentenced Sater to more than a year in prison for stabbing a man in the face with a broken margarita glass.

Sater declined to discuss his work with Trump.

According to Trump lawyer Alan Garten, Sater’s role was to prospect for high-end property deals for the Trump Organisation. The arrangement lasted six months, Garten said.

The revelation about Sater’s role is significant because of its timing and directness, and marks the first time the Trump Organisation has acknowledged publicly that Sater worked for Trump after the disclosures of Sater’s criminal background.

Trump has said that among his secrets of success is that he surrounds himself with the “best and most serious people” and with “people you can trust”.

Sater never had an employment agreement or formal contract with the Trump Organisation and did not close any deals for Trump, Garten said.

“He was trying to restart his life,” Garten said.

“I believe he was regretful of things that happened in the past.”

Trump did not know the details of Sater’s co-operation with the government when Sater came in-house in 2010, Garten said.

But Garten noted that US Attorney General Loretta Lynch praised Sater’s cooperation with the federal government, when senators asked about him during her confirmation hearings early this year.

She said Sater cooperated against his Mafia stock fraud co-defendants and assisted the government on unspecified national security matters.

“If Mr Sater was good enough for the government to work with, I see no reason why he wasn’t good enough for Mr Trump,” Garten said.

Sater’s lawyer, Robert Wolf, said information about Sater in public records and lawsuits obtained by the AP was defamatory. He credited Sater’s stint as a government cooperator with potentially saving American military lives, although he did not provide details.