PROSECUTION OPENS: TRUMP 'COOKED THE BOOKS'

Prosecutor Colangelo is outlining the three “catch and kill” deals that he says came out of the 2015 Trump Tower meeting.

The first came from a former Trump Tower doorman who claimed that Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock. After Pecker’s publishing company, AMI, determined the story was not true, Cohen allegedly told him to wait to release the doorman from his nondisclosure agreement until after the 2016 election, when it could no longer hurt Trump’s campaign.

The second “catch and kill” deal was the account from former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal, who says she had an affair with Trump for around a year while he was married. Cohen allegedly asked AMI to make arrangements to purchase McDougal’s story quickly and confidentially, and AMI ultimately agreed on a sum of $150,000. Trump initially intended to pay AMI back, Colangelo said, and had his attorney Cohen set up a shell company in order to facilitate that payment, but the deal fell apart.

Colangelo told jurors they will hear a recorded phone call that Cohen made between himself and Trump regarding that payment.