On Friday, the judge presiding over the civil business fraud trial against Donald Trump ordered the former president, his sons, business associates and companies to pay more than $350 million in damages and shut down his New York business operations. He ordered that his abilities be temporarily restricted.
Judge Arthur Engoron ordered the former president and the Trump Organization to pay more than $354 million in damages and ordered Trump to “serve as an officer or director of the New York corporation or any other New York corporation for three years. ” was prohibited.
He also continued to “appoint an independent monitor” and ordered the company to “establish an independent compliance director.”
During the trial, Trump and his company executives, including his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, blamed the accountants who prepared the financial statements for the inflated financial statements that are at the heart of the AG's lawsuit. I tried to blame it. Mr. Engoron disagreed.
“There is overwhelming evidence from both interested and disinterested witnesses, supported by documentary evidence, that the reward for being truthful in evaluating supporting data lies with Trump, not accountants,” he said. It's because of the organization,” he wrote.
The judge also noted that Trump and his top officials' lack of remorse after the fraud was revealed also demonstrated the need for oversight.
“Their complete lack of remorse and remorse is pathological. They are only accused of inflating property values to make money. Documents prove this time and time again. It's a petty crime, not a capital crime. The defendants didn't commit murder. “They didn't rob banks at gunpoint. Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff. cannot admit the error of its ways,” Engoron wrote.
“According to the Independent Monitor, the defendants' refusal to admit their error, and indeed their refusal to continue their error, means that this court will continue to do so unless it is judicially bound. “We conclude that the defendants are implicated in this action,” he added.
President Trump's lawyer Alina Haba called the ruling a “plain and simple injustice.”
“Given the significant risks, we trust that the Appellate Division will reverse this terrible ruling and end this relentless persecution of my client,” she said in a statement.
Read more: President Trump faces nearly $400 million in legal fines. Can he afford it?
The ruling is Trump's second of the year, following an $83.3 million judgment last month in a defamation case against author E. Jean Carroll. As presidential campaigning ramps up in the run-up to the November election, the former president could face four criminal trials this year, the first of which is scheduled to begin March 25 in New York state court.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has accused President Trump, his companies, and his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump of “repeated and persistent fraud” that included falsifying business records and financial statements. It was demanding $370 million from the company's executives, including Mr. Mr. James claimed that these financial statements were overstated, sometimes by as much as $2.2 billion.
Mr. James alleged that the defendants used inflated financial statements to obtain bank loans and insurance policies at interest rates they otherwise would not have received, “reaping hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains.'' .
President Trump has maintained that his financial statements are conservative and that the AG's claims are politically motivated and a “fraud on me.”
“This is a lawsuit that should never have been filed, and I think we have a right to seek damages,” President Trump told reporters while attending closing arguments in the case on January 11. Told.
The months-long civil trial included testimony from President Trump and his oldest children. The former president was combative on the stand at the time, accusing James of “hacking” and calling the judge “very hostile.”
Trump repeatedly complained about Engoron before and during the trial, and the judge slapped him with a partial gag order after he also began blasting the judge's law clerk. Mr. Trump's complaint prompted a flurry of death threats against Mr. Engoron and his clerks, court officials said, and Mr. Trump was fined $15,000 for violating the order twice.
Among the examples of fraud cited by the attorney general's office during the trial were Trump appraising his triplex in New York City's Trump Tower at three times its actual size and value, and golf appraisals. In order to increase the brand value, they included the inclusion of brand value. Financial statements clearly state that brand value is not included.
Another example the Attorney-General pointed out clearly struck a chord with him. It's a dispute over the value of Mar-a-Lago, his social club and residence in Florida. President Trump's financial statements from 2011 to 2021 value Mar-a-Lago at between $426 million and $612 million, while the Palm Beach County assessor said it was valued at between $426 million and $612 million for the same period. It estimates the property's market value at $18 million to $27 million. President Trump also fraudulently inflated the property's value by saying it was his private residence, even though he signed an agreement saying it could only be used as a social club to reduce his tax burden.
Trump argued during the trial that the property was worth more.
“The judge said it was $18 million, but I say it's worth, like, 50 to 100 times that. So I don't know how they got that number,” Trump said. testified, adding that he believes it is actually worth “between $1 billion and $1.5 billion.”
James' investigation into the former president's businesses will lead to Trump's former personal attorney Michael telling the House Oversight Committee that Trump will unfairly expand or contract his values to suit whatever his business needs are. – Began in 2019 as a result of Cohen's congressional testimony.
Mr. James filed a lawsuit against Mr. Trump in 2022 seeking $250 million in damages, and a judge appointed a monitor to oversee the company's finances in November of the same year.
In a summary judgment ruling handed down a week before the trial began, Engoron found that Trump and his top executives repeatedly committed fraud. “The documents here clearly contain fraudulent valuations used by the defendants in their business; [the attorney general’s] “The burden is on the defendant to establish liability as a matter of law,” the judge wrote, denying President Trump's dismissal of the case.
Engoron summed up Trump's defense: “The documents don't say what they say. There's no such thing as 'objective' value, and essentially courts shouldn't believe their own eyes.”
The order, which Trump is appealing, says Trump's New York business certificate should be revoked.
Trump complained about the ruling on the witness stand. “He told me I was a fraud before he knew anything about me. He didn't know anything about me,” Trump said. “That was a terrible thing to do.”