NEW YORK — Gary Farro, a banking professional, testified Friday he received an urgent email in October 2016 from Michael Cohen, a client of his who worked as a lawyer for Donald Trump.
Mr. Cohen wanted to open an account “immediately” and wanted no address on his checks for the entity, “Resolution Consultants LLC.”
Prosecutors called Mr. Farro as their third witness as they established a paper trail in their hush money case against the former president.
Mr. Farro said he thought the LLC was a real estate consultancy, though “the account never went live.” Mr. Cohen then tried to open a second account called “Essential Consultants LLC,” and told the bank it was urgent.
Prosecutors did not signal where they were heading before the court adjourned for the week. But they previously accused Mr. Cohen of setting up a shell company to manage hush payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump denies the encounter but did not want her to go public with the claim before the 2016 election.
Prosecutors allege the effort to pay Ms. Daniels $130,000 resulted in an illegal cover-up that misled banks and triggered election and tax offenses.
Mr. Farro said Mr. Cohen was assigned to him after another employee left First Republic Bank, where he worked for 15 years until its demise last year during a brief banking crisis.
Mr. Farro said he was often assigned to clients who “may be a little challenging.”
He didn’t find Mr. Cohen that difficult and, while he knew Mr. Cohen worked for Mr. Trump, the accounts he handled were Mr. Cohen’s “personal accounts and personal entities,” according to testimony.
Mr. Farro now works at another bank, called Flagstar.