Trump faces the judge he called deranged in New York fraud case
It marks the start of the several civil and criminal cases for Trump that will stretch into next year.
Donald Trump is expected to attend the opening of a civil case in New York today (Monday) in which he and his corporate empire have been accused of widespread fraud over several years.
The trial pits the former president, 77, against Judge Arthur Engoron, a Democrat appointed to his position in Manhattan in 2015. Last week in a summary judgment, Engoron found that Trump was liable for widespread fraud.
Trump had not been expected to attend in person but filings in a separate case indicated he will appear at the Manhattan court to hear Letitia James, the New York Attorney-General, set out her case for dollars 250 million in fines for the Trump Organisation and a ban on the frontrunner for next year’s Republican presidential nomination running businesses in the state.
It marks the start of the several civil and criminal cases for Trump that will stretch into next year. He faces 91 criminal charges in four cases but denies any wrongdoing and says they amount to a witch-hunt to prevent him returning to the White House.
Trump reacted to the ruling by describing Engoron as “deranged”. In a series of posts on his Truth Social platform, Trump attacked Engoron and James, describing the ruling as a “scam”.
“This is a lawsuit that should never have been brought. It is a POLITICALLY MOTIVATED WITCH HUNT by a Racist Attorney-General, and a Deranged, Trump Hating Judge. It is ELECTION INTERFERENCE at a level never seen before,” he said.
The trial could end up as a dispute over the punishment meted out to Trump, his sons Donald Jr, 45, and Eric, 39, and the company. James had asked the judge to issue a summary judgment before the trial, arguing there was “undisputed evidence” that Trump and the company secured “hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten savings and profits”. Engoron wrote in his ruling that court documents given in evidence “clearly contain fraudulent valuations”. He said Trump and the company operated in a “fantasy world”, ignoring planning and rent restrictions to boost property value.
Trump is accused of overstating his wealth to secure larger bank loans. In all, James alleges Trump boosted his net worth by as much as dollars 3.6 billion.
Engoron cited six properties that Trump overvalued in financial disclosures. In the four years to 2016, when he won the presidential election, he claimed that his three-floor apartment at Trump Tower was three times bigger than it is. This, the judge said, led to an overvaluation of up to dollars 207 million. Trump’s legal team argued that the measurement was subjective but carried out in good faith, a notion rejected by the judge.
The judge also said Trump had drastically overvalued Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate. A Palm Beach assessor estimated that Mar-a-Lago was worth dollars 18 million to dollars 27.6 million. Trump had claimed the estate was worth up to dollars 612 million.
“A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud,” the judge said of the former president’s assessments.
Eric Trump, who manages the property business at the Trump Organisation, claimed Mar-a-Lago was worth more than dollars 1 billion, “making it arguably the most valuable residential property in the country”.
Lawyers for the former president said the ruling amounted to an attempt to “nationalise one of the most successful corporate empires in the US”.
Engoron’s fraud ruling resolved the key claim in James’s lawsuit but others remain, including allegations of conspiracy, falsifying business records and insurance fraud.
The civil trial is the culmination of a year-long investigation by James’s office. Trump was questioned under oath and millions of pages of documents changed hands. Engoron has said that the hearing could take three months.
As well as the dollars 250 million fine, James is also seeking a lifetime bar on Trump and his sons from serving as directors of any New York companies, as well as a five-year bar on Trump or his company from entering into any property acquisitions. It has been argued that such punishments would amount to a corporate death penalty on Trump’s businesses.
Even though Trump plans to appear in court today (Monday), it is unclear if he will be called as a witness or give evidence. When he was called to give testimony in August last year, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 400 times.
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