Judge fines Donald Trump more than $350 million, bars him from running businesses in N.Y. for three years
Category: News & Politics
Via: jbb • 8 months ago • 62 commentsBy: Adam Reiss and Dareh Gregorian (NBC News)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
By Adam Reiss and Dareh Gregorian
The judge who presided over a civil business fraud trial against Donald Trump and his company has issued his decision in the case.
Judge Arthur Engoron ordered the former president and the Trump Organization to pay over $350 million in damages, and bars Trump "from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for a period of three years."
He also continued "the appointment of an Independent Monitor" and ordered "the installation of an Independent Director of Compliance" for the company.
The judgment is the second this year against Trump after he was hit last month with an $83.3 million verdict in writer E. Jean Carroll's defamation case against him. The former president could also face four criminal trials this year as his presidential campaign barrels toward the November election, with the first set to begin in New York state court on March 25th.
New York Attorney General Letitia James had been seeking $370 million from Trump, his company and its top executives, including his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, alleging "repeated and persistent fraud" that included falsifying business records and financial statements. James had argued those financial statements were at times exaggerated by as much as $2.2 billion.
James contended the defendants used the inflated financial statements to obtain bank loans and insurance policies at rates he otherwise wouldn't have been entitled to and "reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains."
Trump had maintained his financial statements were conservative, and has called the AG's allegations politically motivated and a "fraud on me."
"This is a case that should have never been brought, and I think we should be entitled to damages," Trump told reporters when he attended closing arguments in the case on Jan. 11.
The months-long civil trial included testimony from Trump and his oldest children. The former president was combative in his day on the stand, blasting James as a "hack" and calling the judge "extremely hostile."
Trump repeatedly complained about Engoron before and throughout the trial, and the judge slapped him with a partial gag order after he started blasting the judge's law clerk as well. Trump's complaints led to a flood of death threats against the clerk, as well as Engoron, court officials said, and Trump was fined $15,000 for twice violating the order.
Among the examples cited as fraud by the attorney general's office during the trial was Trump valuing his triplex home in Trump Tower in New York City at three times its actual size and value, as well as including a brand value to increase the valuation of his golf courses on the financial statements, which explicitly said brand values were not included.
Another example pointed to by the attorney general clearly got under his skin — a dispute over the value of Mar-a-Lago, his social club and residence in Florida. Trump's financial statements between 2011 and 2021 valued Mar-a-Lago at between $426 million and $612 million, while the Palm Beach County assessor appraised the property's market value to be between $18 million and $27 million during the same timeframe. Trump had also fraudulently puffed up the value of the property by saying it was a private residence, despite having signed an agreement that it could only be used as a social club to lower his tax burden.
Trump maintained during the trial the property was worth much, much more.
"The judge had it at $18 million, and it is worth, say, I say from 50 to 100 times more than that. So I don't know how you got those numbers," Trump testified, adding later that he thinks it's actually worth "between a billion and a billion five."
James' investigation into the former president's business began in 2019 as a result of congressional testimony from his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who told the House Oversight Committee that Trump would improperly expand and shrink values to fit whatever his business needs were.
James filed a suit seeking $250 million in damages from Trump in 2022, and the judge appointed a monitor to oversee the company's finances that November.
In a summary judgment ruling the week before the trial started, Engoron found Trump and his executives had repeatedly engaged in fraud. The "documents here clearly contain fraudulent valuations that defendants used in business, satisfying [the attorney general's] burden to establish liability as a matter of law against defendants," the judge wrote, while denying Trump's bid to dismiss the case.
Engoron summarized the Trump defense as "the documents do not say what they say; that there is no such thing as 'objective' value; and that, essentially, the Court should not believe its own eyes."
The order, which Trump is appealing, held that Trump's business certificates in New York should be canceled.
Trump complained about that ruling on the witness stand. "He said I was a fraud before he knew anything about me, nothing about me," Trump said. "It's a terrible thing you did."
Adam Reiss
Adam Reiss is a reporter and producer for NBC and MSNBC.
Dareh Gregorian
Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.
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BOOM!
3 years for no business in New York seems kind of light. Was expecting closer to 10.
I'll be shocked if he even makes it thru this year. coughing up half a billion dollars could be too stressful for him. all of his assets just moved into the distressed sales category. with a fraud of this size, I'd like to know how trump is evading a criminal prosecution.
I just read that NY requires a 120% bond of judgements for appeals. trump is in for over half a billion now.
Maybe the stress will kill him.
I cannot believe that there is enough money amongst those fools/supporters to pay off this kind of debt.
Saw that since he cannot conduct business in New York, he cannot get a bank loan for this from any bank that does business in New York. Even his mainstay Deutsche Bank will not be allowed to loan him any further money because of that, preventing Putin from helping him out. So he may have to call his Saudi friends for a loan.
Per the AP:
Lawfare. Straight out of the USSR. Show me the man and NY will manufacture the crime
Exactly for the last 8 years.
Then it should easily be overturned on appeal.
Why would that possibly be true? Even in criminal cases, states have almost unlimited power to pick and choose who gets prosecuted, and this isn’t a criminal case.
A case that is flawed on merits is —logically— one that is very vulnerable to be overturned.
Not at all. Laws are rarely thrown out by the courts, no matter how illogical they are. Courts overwhelmingly defer to the legislature's judgment.
It will be.
The only thing is this DA can say she followed through on her actual campaign message to "get Trump"
That it will get overturned means nothing to the idiots of New York that support this fraud of a DA and judge.
Laws?? How did you go from a case being overturned to laws being thrown out by a court?
If the case is without merit or the adjudication was improper, it could be overturned.
This is leftist TDS driven NY. It will take an honest judge or judges to throw it out.
Good luck with that.
The reactions from the MAGA on this are just another version of he can shoot someone on 5th avenue.
The reaction from leftists proves the Democrat attempt to turn this into a more woke, racially, and financially divided version of China is well underway.
Either the laws apply equally to everyone; or no one.
Congrats on putting another win into the no one category.
We can celebrate that Trump is finally receiving equal treatment under the law. His wealth and power no longer shield him from justice and his status is appropriately the same as every other citizen.
Just like 1/6. He is not immune to do whatever the hell he pleases.
Comment 2.2.6 is a prime example of neo-fascist propaganda which is based primarily on incessant and unrelenting attacks on American values.
rigged! rigged! rigged! f'n dumb asses...
but, but, but, he wasn't convicted of anything . . .
FFS
Trump screwed Trump.
All sorts of people have believed, for decades, that Trump is a crook. So when the law finally catches up to him what do we see? His sycophants and flunkies and cultists crying foul. Boo hoo.
trump is already fund raising off this decision... suckers!!!
Yet he wasn't convicted of a crime...
is sycophants and flunkies and cultists crying foul. Boo hoo.
I'm not a zealot who justifies anything in the name of their partisan goals. I'm not a "destroy the village in order to save it" type of guy. I think norms matter and the rule of law matter. And when the law becomes a tool merely to get someone like James promised to "get Trump", the rule of law doesn't really exist. It's just a weapon wielded by partisans.
There's two kinds of people as demonstrated by Robert Bolt in the play "A Man for All Seasons"
The Roman Republic fell in large part because law became weaponized. Once you go down that path, once laws are simply tools to punish opponents and protect friends, it's not too long before weapons take the place of laws.
a lot of crooks dont get convicted of crimes
Do you think Trump cares at all about norms or the rule of law ?
In A Man For All Seasons, William Roper lied about Thomas More. No one is lying about Trump.
I don't care what Trump believes. That's the point.
Yup, when a lifelong thug, grifter, crook, is finally held accountable, the whining just goes into overdrive.
They hold the former traitor thug 'president' to no standards whatsoever.
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Attorney James has not made the court do anything. Had she used her office to bring a frivolous case, it is doubtful that she would have gotten this far with such a personal attack!
As you might imagine on any given other matter, when a judge acts and decides a matter before her/him there is consideration given to the review of the decision so professionally judges try to do their best, if only to avoid the loss generated by having not done their best toward a fellow citizen.
removed for context
Lol. Are you familiar with the Democratic Party? Simply being on this discussion site should have disabused you of any such notion about Democrats.
s and decides a matter before her/him there is consideration given to the review of the decision so professionally judges try to do their best
I hate to tell you, but Judges, especially Judges who are elected, are politicians, and this Judge in particular is a left wing activist.
Then, . . . the nation should stop electing judges. . . . If there is nothing else. . . let's move on. It is shameful that we have judges that bear labels that people can point to which give people the opportunity to call them out as such and such. But let's be clear: I have no belief whatsoever that you would be fair to this judge (like you would be "over-fair" to Donald).
Wow, 355 million and trump didn't do a damn thing wrong? Wow! /s
My goodness!
Trump is a crook.
Who would ever have imagined such a thing?
I remember back in 2015. When Trump announced he was going to run for president I started to look for articles about him. Because I didn't know very much about him other than The Apprentice TV shows. And him having been on Johnny Carson and David Letterman. So I looked at some articles, And one of them referred specifically to the way Trump would manipulate the value of his properties. based on whether he wanted to get bank loans or to pay less property tax.
When he wanted a loan he would inflate the value of the property. In the documents. And when he wanted to avoid property taxes he would try and make the case to the tax authority that the property was worth a fraction of what they thought it was. This was 8 1/2 years ago. The article that I was reading at that time was probably written 10 or 12 years ago.
So this whole story of Trump committing this kind of fraud isn't new. But it took all these years and probably even decades for someone in law enforcement, in the judicial system, to give a damn about it. So there's no sympathy given to Trump. He's been this sort of a fraud and crook for a long long time.
Happy Disgorgement Day Everybody!
I vote for this because I see it as just and not as glee! It is a sad development for a man who won't stop 'experimenting' with cases through the Department of Justice and state legal systems.
I like it!
"without a showing of obvious victims and major losses."
Wow, a victimless crime, and no lenders lost money. They knowingly accepted the appraisals and made the loans.
Puffery is a well-known tactic when buying or selling real estate or getting loans on same.
What You Should Know About Puffing in Real Estate (realtybiznews.com)
Did you read your link? Donald was not engaged in the small time puffery talked of in the article.
Yeah, and 1/6 was a few tourists who got a little rowdy. . .
Alot rowdy but it is good to see you understanding
What parties were injured, and in what way? Where is the loss?
Lenders and banks are not fooled, their appraisers know what they are doing and loan accordingly. The loans were repaid.
Be honest, this amounts to political prosecution and nothing else and everyone, including you, knows it.
This verdict by one Trump hating judge is excessive and has a good chance of being overturned on appeal.
That's literally how loans work. The loan recipient provides an estimate of the values to the bank. The bank appraises the collateral and either agrees or disagrees and proceeds accordingly. Which is what happened.
This has to be the first time the "victims" in a fraud trial offered testimony in support of the supposed fraud
And who would Trump pay the fines to?
Trump may have considered his actions as reasonable as you do; trouble is, the law is the law and if some one brings a charge. . . the law will scrutinize and decide what is reasonable and appropriate.
To whomsoever brought the case to court, that seems to be the State of New York.
Friend Greg, do not bypass the court's decision making process. No reasonable judge has it in for Trump; the law is what it is. Whether or not people are brought before the law each and every time this kind of thing happens is not a consideration of the court. Laws are its basis for deciding. Trump, who is a "perennial" litigate has for since his days of Roy Kohn known this fact about courts!
So you admit it's a crime.
... and Ivanka pulls away with a lite wrist slap. Ah the fickle finger of the blindfolded lady.
It took way too long for the right verdict in this case to finally be reached.
I guess we will see if he really has access to all that cash (millions) that he has bragged about
Time to pay up Mr. Trump!
Probably be overturned.
Probably be affirmed.
Very unlikely.
Probably be overturned.
I doubt that, it might be modified ($ amount lowered) but I think the ruling will stand the test of appeal.