(CN) — Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment Thursday naming a third defendant, a Mar-a-Lago maintenance supervisor, in the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump, who also faces a new charge in connection to a scheme to erase security footage.
Carlos De Oliveira, the head of maintenance at the Florida resort, stands accused of trying to interfere with the government's efforts to retrieve classified materials Trump stored at Mar-a-Lago after he left the White House, according to the superseding indictment.
Federal prosecutors say that in 2022, De Oliveira asked an IT employee to erase security footage from Mar-a-Lago in an attempt to conceal the conspiracy from a grand jury. Trump and his personal aide, Walt Nauta, are also accused of ordering the employee to destroy footage.
Those accusations brought two new charges to the former president’s indictment — altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing evidence in a federal investigation. Trump is also charged with an additional violation of the Espionage Act on accusations he shared secret documents with visitors at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Nauta faces multiple counts related to mishandling classified documents and obstruction.
The new indictment details the bungled plot to delete the footage.
On June 22, 2022, the Department of Justice emailed Trump’s attorney a grand jury subpoena for surveillance footage video from the resort, according to the indictment.
According to the indictment, Nauta was notified that same day Trump wanted to see him. Less than two hours later, the aide changed plans to accompany his boss to Illinois and instead made arrangements to travel to Palm Beach, Florida, prosecutors say.
De Oliveira told a valet not to tell anyone Nauta was at Mar-a-Lago — the trip was a secret. The men looked at the surveillance video monitors in the resort’s security booth before inspecting the cameras with a flashlight, the indictment states.
Prosecutors say De Oliveira met with the IT employee the morning of June 27 and told the employee “the boss” wanted the server that stored security footage deleted.
The employee said he did not know how to do that, nor did he think he had the right to do it, the indictment says.
De Oliveira texted Nauta and they met at the property that afternoon, the indictment states. De Oliveira spoke briefly with Trump, but the footage was apparently never deleted.
The next month, the grand jury viewed the surveillance footage, which showed boxes containing classified information being moved around the resort, the indictment states.
Prosecutors say that in January, De Oliveira told FBI agents in an interview he knew nothing about the documents even as surveillance footage showed otherwise.
“Never saw nothing,” De Oliveira twice said about the documents, according to the indictment.
De Oliveira is charged with two counts of concealing evidence in a federal investigation. He is also charged with lying to a federal agent and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
A criminal summons was issued Thursday for De Oliveira. He is scheduled for an initial court appearance Monday in Miami’s federal court. De Oliveira’s attorney could not be reached for comment.
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