WASHINGTON, Sep 26 (AP) - A judge has ruled that former United States President Donald Trump committed fraud for years while building the real estate empire that catapulted him to fame.
Judge Arthur Engoron, ruling in a civil lawsuit brought by New York’s attorney general, found that the former president and his company deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing financing.
Engoron ordered that some of Trump’s business licenses be rescinded as punishment, making it difficult or impossible for them to do business in New York. The judge also said he would continue to have an independent monitor oversee the Trump Organization’s operations.
A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling. Trump has long insisted he did nothing wrong.
The decision is the strongest repudiation yet of Trump’s carefully coiffed image as a wealthy and shrewd real estate mogul turned political powerhouse.
Beyond mere bragging about his riches, Trump, his company and key executives repeatedly lied on his annual financial statements, reaping rewards such as favourable loan terms and lower insurance premiums, Engoron found.
Those tactics crossed a line and violated the law, the judge said, rejecting Trump’s contention that a disclaimer on the financial statements absolved him of any wrongdoing.
“In defendants’ world: rent regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air; a disclaimer by one party casting responsibility on another party exonerates the other party’s lies,” Engoron wrote in his 35-page ruling. “That is a fantasy world, not the real world.”
Manhattan prosecutors had looked into bringing a criminal case over the same conduct but declined to do so, leaving New York Attorney General Letitia James to sue Trump and seek penalties that could disrupt his and his family’s ability to do business in the state.
Engoron’s ruling – which comes in a phase of the case known as summary judgement – resolves the key claim in James’s lawsuit, but six others remain.
Engoron is slated to hold a non-jury trial starting October 2 before deciding on those claims and any punishments he may impose. The trial could last into December, Engoron has said.
Trump’s lawyers had asked the judge to throw out the case, which he denied. They contend that James was not legally allowed to file the lawsuit because there is no evidence the public was harmed by Trump’s actions. They also argued that many of the allegations in the lawsuit were barred by the statute of limitations.
Engoron, noting that he had “emphatically rejected” those arguments earlier in the case, equated them to the “time-loop in the film Groundhog Day”.
James, a Democrat, sued Trump and the Trump Organization a year ago, alleging a pattern of duplicity that she dubbed “the art of the steal”, a twist on the title of Trump’s 1987 business memoir The Art of the Deal.
The lawsuit accused Trump and his company of routinely inflating the value of assets like skyscrapers, golf courses and his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, padding his bottom line by billions.
Among the allegations was that Trump claimed his Trump Tower apartment in Manhattan – a three-story penthouse replete with gold-plated fixtures – was nearly three times its actual size and valued the property at $327m. No apartment in New York City has ever sold for close to that amount, James said.
Trump also valued Mar-a-Lago as high as $739 million – more than 10 times a reasonable estimate of its worth. Trump’s figure for the private club and residence was based on the idea that the property could be developed for residential use, but deed terms prohibit that, James said.
Photo from AFP
