Judge revokes Trump’s NY business licenses, finds he committed fraud by inflating wealth
Judge revokes Trump’s NY business licenses, finds he committed fraud by inflating wealth
A Manhattan judge on Tuesday found Donald Trump committed fraud by exaggerating the value of his wealth — and canceled the former president’s New York business licenses, which could hamper his longtime company’s ability to operate in the Empire State.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron found Trump, 77, his family and his business, the Trump Organization, liable for fraud — the key claim in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ sprawling lawsuit against the defendants.
In a 35-page ruling, Engoron sided with James, who argued that Trump made several indisputably false statements in business documents to secure favorable terms with banks — including by claiming that his soaring triplex penthouse at Trump Tower was 30,000 square feet when it was in fact closer to 11,000 feet.
“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,” Engoron wrote.
The judge revoked the New York “business certificates” belonging to the Trump Organization and any other New York-based business run by Trump or his family — while ordering that an independent third party will be tasked with “managing the dissolution of the cancelled LLCs.”
It means Trump could be stripped of control over some of his namesake properties — including Trump Tower in Midtown.
“The widespread, radical attack against me, my family and my supporters have now devolved to new, un-American depths,” Trump ranted on Truth Social Tuesday night, calling Engoron “deranged” and James a “completely biased and corrupt ‘prosecutor.’”
“We are rapidly becoming a communist country, and my civil rights have been taken away from me,” he continued.
“This is Democrat political lawfare and a witch hunt at a level never seen before.”
Trump plans to appeal the decision, his attorneys said.
“Today’s outrageous decision is completely disconnected from the facts and governing law,” Christopher Kise, a lawyer for Trump, said in a statement. “President Trump and his family will seek all available appellate remedies to rectify this miscarriage of justice.”
Trump’s effort to get the court to dismiss James’ fraud and other claims — including by arguing that the statute of limitations on them had run out — was also denied in Tuesday’s ruling.
And the judge issued sanctions against several of Trump’s lawyers, ordering five of the former president’s attorneys to pay $7,500 each for making “frivolous” arguments in the case.
A non-jury trial is set to start Oct. 2 for Engoron to hear arguments on the other claims in the suit, before deciding on those allegations.
James’ office has previously claimed that the former president, the Trump Organization, and Eric and Donald Trump Jr. overstated the value of his assets by as much as $3.6 billion a year.
The lawsuit aims to force Trump to pay back to the state millions in penalties, halt Trump’s ability to run businesses in New York and bar him and his team from buying commercial property for several years.
James, in a statement, said she looks forward to presenting the rest of her case at trial.
Trump spokeswoman Alina Habba called the ruling “fundamentally flawed at every level” and “an affront to our legal system.”
“We intend to immediately appeal this decision because President Trump and his family, like every American business owner, is entitled to their day in court,” she said in a statement.
https://nypost.com/2023/09/26/trump-committed-fraud-by-inflating-wealth-ny-judge/
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