NEW YORK • Donald Trump’s company and its longtime finance chief were charged Thursday in what prosecutors called a “sweeping and audacious” tax fraud scheme in which the executive collected more than $1.7 million in off-the-books compensation, including apartment rent, car payments and school tuition.

Trump was not charged, but prosecutors noted that he signed some of the compensation checks at the center of the alleged scheme.

It is the first criminal case to come out New York authorities’ two-year investigation into the former president’s business dealings.

According to the indictment unsealed Thursday, from 2005 through this year, the Trump Organization and Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg cheated the state and city out of taxes by conspiring to pay senior executives off the books by way of lucrative fringe benefits and other means. Weisselberg alone was accused of cheating the federal government, the state and the city out of more than $900,000 in taxes.

Weisselberg and lawyers for the Trump Organization pleaded not guilty. Weisselberg was ordered to surrender his passport and released without bail, leaving the courthouse without comment.

The most serious charge against Weisselberg, grand larceny, carries five to 15 years in prison. The tax fraud charges against the company are punishable by a fine of double the amount of unpaid taxes, or $250,000, whichever is larger. The 73-year-old Weisselberg has intimate knowledge of the Trump Organization’s financial dealings from nearly five decades at the company. And the charges against him could give prosecutors the means to pressure him to cooperate with the investigation and tell them what he knows.

In a statement, Trump branded the case a “political Witch Hunt by the Radical Left Democrats.” Weisselberg’s lawyers said he will “fight these charges.”

The case is being led by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and New York Attorney General Letitia James, both Democrats. Vance, who leaves office at the end of the year, has been conducting a wide-ranging investigation into a variety of matters involving Trump and the Trump Organization, such as hush-money payments paid to women on Trump’s behalf and whether the company manipulated the value of its properties to obtain loans or reduce its tax bills.

The news comes as Trump has been discussing a possible comeback run for president in 2024. He he has ramped up his public appearances, including holding his first rallies since leaving the White House.

In announcing the grand jury indictment, Carey Dunne, the top prosecutor in the district attorney’s office, said; “Politics has no role in the jury chamber, and I can assure you it had no role here.” He outlined a 15-year scheme “orchestrated by the most senior executives” at the Trump Organization.

Trump has said his company’s actions were standard practice in the business and in no way a crime.

FILE — This file photo from Wednesday Jan. 11, 2017, shows President-elect Donald Trump, left, his chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, center, and his son Donald Trump Jr., right, during a news conference at Trump Tower in New York. Prosecutors in New York are expected to bring the first criminal charges in a two-year investigation into Trump’s business practices, accusing his namesake company and its longtime finance chief Weisselberg of tax crimes. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Evan Vucci