The Mar-a-Lago IT director who flipped on Donald Trump in the classified documents case has struck a deal with Special Counsel Jack Smith to provide testimony and avoid criminal charges.
Yuscil Taveras, 45, is a part-time DJ and registered Democrat with a history of money troubles, DailyMail.com previously revealed.
The deal was made after Smith’s office threatened to prosecute Taveras for lying to a grand jury, Taveras’ former attorney, Stanley Woodward, said in the filing.
Prosecutors have said Taveras is likely to testify at trial, posing a potential conflict of interest for Woodward, who will face the prospect of a former client testifying against a current client.
Woodward currently represents Walt Nauta, one of the two Trump employees also charged in the documents case, in addition to having previously represented the IT head, who is not named in Wednesday’s filing.
Yuscil Taveras, the Mar-a-Lago IT director who flipped on Donald Trump in the classified documents case has entered into a deal with Special Counsel Jack Smith to provide testimony, according to court filings
Woodward has not opposed the request for US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over the case, to hold a hearing on the issue.
But he suggested in Wednesday’s filing that prosecutors’ handling of the IT manager’s testimony was improper.
The case is one of four criminal prosecutions of Trump, who leads the field seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in the 2024 election.
Prosecutors previously said that Taveras had information about efforts by Trump´s personal aide Nauta and others to obstruct the classified documents investigation.
Taveras’ current attorney had no immediate comment.
Prosecutors have charged Trump, Nauta and a third Mar-a-Lago employee, Carlos De Oliveira, with trying to thwart government efforts to retrieve sensitive documents taken to the Florida resort after Trump left office. All three have pleaded not guilty.
A spokesperson for Smith´s office declined to comment. Woodward declined to comment.
Justice Department filings suggest that Taveras – described as ‘Trump employee 4’ – initially denied any knowledge of an alleged plot to wipe incriminating CCTV from a server at the former President’s swish Florida residence.
Donald Trump leaves Trump Tower on September 6, 2023 in New York City
Taveras, 45, is a New York native and registered Democrat who had moonlighted as ‘DJ Juicy’. He is pictured performing for a college radio station in Manhattan in 2009
After receiving a letter from the special counsel’s office threatening him with prosecution, he dropped Woodward as his attorney and then detailed alleged efforts to delete security camera footage at Mar-a-Lago, they said.
Woodward rejected prosecutors’ account in Wednesday´s filing, saying the IT employee provided new testimony to the grand jury only after being offered a non-prosecution deal, which was reached after he was no longer representing the employee.
Taveras managed to rack up debts of nearly $750,000 despite holding down a string of well-paid tech jobs and moonlighting as ‘DJ Juicy.’
The New York native has scrubbed his social media and kept a low profile since his explosive U-turn was revealed in an August 22 federal court filing.
He and his wife are currently renting a smart $850,000 home in a gated community in Lake Worth, Florida, less than 30 minutes from the Mar-a-Lago Club, where the longtime Trump organization employee has worked for the past several years.
When DailyMail.com dialed the number for Taveras on the estate’s door entry system a female voice picked up and insisted: ‘You have the wrong number.’
The father of two young boys ignored our calls and texts and blocked our reporter’s number when we reached out via WhatsApp.
Taveras graduated from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York in 2001 with a degree in computer information systems and went on to land a series of jobs in the luxury hotel industry.
He worked for Ritz-Carlton and Marriott before taking a position with the Trump Soho Hotel in 2010 and, five years later, the Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York City, according to his now-deleted Linkedin page.
When he wasn’t working in IT, Taveras was hitting the decks as his record-spinning alter-ego, DJ Juicy.
Taveras, a married father-of-two, currently lives in a rented $850,000 home in a gated community in Lake Worth, less than 30 minutes from the Mar-a-Lago Club, where the longtime Trump organization employee has worked for the past several years
Public records reveal Taveras and his wife of 20 years, Darleny Cabreja-Taveras, have had their share of financial woes, having filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in October 2017
Taveras is now expected to be called as a trial witness to testify against Trump. Pictured: Donald Trump inside a Manhattan courtroom in April
He was pictured in 2009 performing for a college radio station in Manhattan.
In 2017 he swapped the Bronx for the Sunshine State, where he is listed as Director of Information Technology for Trump Florida Properties. He registered as a Democrat in Florida in 2019 and and voted in the 2020 general election.
Taveras and his wife of 20 years, Darleny Cabreja-Taveras, have had their share of financial woes along the way, however, having filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in October 2017.
Court documents obtained by DailyMail.com show the couple owed $738,533 to a slew of creditors including banks, credit card firms, car leasing companies and a furniture store.
They paid back $67,133 over five years before being declared debt-free in December 2022.
The toll on the couple’s finances did not stop systems administrator Darleny, 44, from recently launching a baking business called Sweet Cake Pops & More.
The entrepreneurial mom also worked for Trump Hotels from 2014 to 2016 and founded an IT firm, Synergy Tech Solution, in 2021.
New court filings show that the federal government ‘anticipates calling Trump Employee 4 as a trial witness
Yuscil Taveras, the head of IT at Mar-a-Lago, received a ‘target’ letter from prosecutors, but has not been charged
Cameras at Mar-a-Lago overlooked the storeroom where Trump staffer De Oliveira and former White House valet Walt Nauta are alleged to have stashed boxes
Taveras appeared before a grand jury in May where he was asked why Mar-a-Lago maintenance manager Carlos De Oliveira called him last summer shortly after prosecutors issued a subpoena for surveillance camera footage.
The cameras overlooked the storeroom where De Oliveira and former White House valet Walt Nauta are alleged to have stashed boxes before prosecutors traveled to Palm Beach to demand the return of classified documents that Trump kept after leaving office in 2021.
Smith’s lawyers wanted to know whether anyone considered deleting or interfering with the footage but Taveras repeatedly denied that any such conversations took place, it’s alleged.
When an updated Trump indictment was revealed in July it claimed that Nauta and De Oliveira met up at Mar-a-Lago on June 25, 2022 to inspect the storeroom and surrounding cameras.
Two days later De Oliveira asked ‘Employee 4’ how long the system retained footage and told him ‘the boss’ – likely referring to Trump – wanted the server deleted.
‘Trump Employee 4 responded that he would not know how to do that, and that he did not believe that he would have the rights to do that,’ the indictment added.
Carlos De Oliveira, 56, (left) walked out of federal court on July 31. Walt Nauta, a former Trump aide and White House valet, has also been charged in the probe
He responded by ditching MAGA stalwart attorney Woodward – who is backed by Trump’s Save America PAC – for a federal public defender before reversing his testimony.
He ‘provided information that implicated Nauta, De Oliveira, and Trump’ and the federal government ‘anticipates calling Trump Employee 4 as a trial witness’, the DOJ says in its latest filing.
Trump, currently the Republican primary frontrunner, was charged in June with 37 counts related to violations of the Espionage Act, willfully retaining classified documents and refusing to return them to the federal government.
He has pleaded not guilty and has denied every allegation in the four separate criminal indictments brought against him in federal and state courts.
Nauta is accused of conspiring to obstruct an FBI and grand jury investigation. The longtime aide to the 45th President has pleaded not guilty.
De Oliveira has denied charges of obstruction and lying to investigators. Prosecutors allege he falsely claimed he had not seen boxes moved into Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk