Trump’s Mar-a-Lago manager Carlos De Oliveira doesn’t enter plea in documents case appearance
WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump’s latest co-defendant in the classified documents case faced a Miami federal judge on Monday, but did not enter a plea as he works to find local counsel.
Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager of the 77-year-old Trump’s sprawling Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Fla., was indicted Thursday on four charges related to allegedly moving boxes of classified documents and attempting to delete footage of the act to thwart federal investigators and the 45th president’s own lawyers.
Wearing a dark blue suit and polka-dotted tie, the 56-year-old De Oliveira made his initial court appearance alongside his out-of-state counsel, John Irving, but had yet to secure a local attorney to represent him in Florida.
As a result, the scheduled arraignment was postponed until Aug. 10 and De Oliveira was turned loose on a $100,000 signature bond.
The third defendant in the case, Walt Nauta, had a similar issue when he went in for his arraignment last month on charges related to conspiring to hide national security documents at the Trump property. His plea was rescheduled twice before he entered a not guilty plea on July 6.
Signature bonds, also known as “own recognizance” bonds, require no money to be put up for collateral so long as the defendant makes all future court dates.
De Oliveira is accused of helping Nauta transport boxes of classified documents to Trump’s Bedminster, NJ, residence in June 2022 while FBI agents searched the mansion for them.
He is also accused of telling the resort’s IT director weeks later that “the boss” wanted a server scrubbed of any security footage of the incident. It is unclear whether any footage was ever deleted.
De Oliveira was charged in a 60-page superseding indictment filed by prosecutors working for special counsel Jack Smith. In the same filing, Trump was hit with three additional federal counts in the case, bringing the total facing the former president to 40.
The property manager faces charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice; altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing an object; corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing a document, record, or other object; and making false statements to investigators.
He faces up to 65 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
