Trump Owes New Yorkers $370 Million for Fraud, State Argues (4)

Donald Trump and his company should be ordered to pay $370 million, up from $250 million, for inflating the value of his assets in financial records for more than a decade, New York state told a judge who will eventually issue a verdict in the civil fraud trial.

The $120 million increase was included in a post-trial brief Friday by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who sued Trump and The Trump Organization over the alleged fraud in 2022. The filing is a preview of the state’s closing arguments, which will be presented Jan. 11, with Trump likely in attendance.

“I did absolutely nothing wrong,” Trump said after he learned about the filing. “My financial statements are great.”

James has argued that the defendants, including Trump’s sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., should return all “illegal profit” the former president received by exaggerating his assets to get better terms on loans. James had said her estimate of $250 million could change based on evidence at the trial, which began in early October.

The defendants “continue to conduct business without meaningful corporate oversight to prevent further fraud on the marketplace,” James said in the filing.

WATCH: Jessica Roth of the Cardozo Law School talks about Trump’s legal troubles.

Source: Bloomberg

The trial is one of six Trump is facing as he campaigns to return to the White House in the November election, including four criminal prosecutions and a civil defamation trial in Manhattan starting Jan. 16. He denies wrongdoing in all the cases, claiming they’re part of a coordinated “witch hunt” against him.

In a statement, Trump lawyer Christopher Kise called New York’s demand for more damages “unconscionable, unsupported by the evidence, untethered from reality, and unconstitutionally excessive.”

In a seperate brief Friday, Kise said New York failed to prove that any bank had been harmed by issuing loans to Trump, or that the former president had gotten interest rates that he didn’t deserve as a wealthy client.

The state court proceedings have been on hiatus since Justice Arthur Engoron heard from the last witness on Dec. 13, following almost 11 weeks of testimony. He will issue a verdict without a jury.

James said in her filing that the trial exposed in detail how the Trumps “employed numerous deceptive schemes” to intentionally inflate the former president’s net wealth by as much as $3.6 billion a year, allowing him to get the best possible rates on hundreds of millions of dollars in loans.

Read More: Fake Mansions and Rent-Stabilized Units Emerge in Trump Trial

The attorney general called her conclusion “inescapable,” pointing to evidence that Trump’s annual financial statements counted the full value of properties for which construction had not even been planned, and valued land at a premium without regard to restrictions on development.

The judge already held Trump liable for fraud before the trial started, resolving the biggest claim in James’s suit. The trial has focused on six remaining claims as well as penalties, including a possible ban on Trump serving as an officer of any New York-based company.

Engoron has frequently ruled for New York in the case. At the end of testimony, he denied Trump’s request for an immediate verdict in his favor, criticizing his defense and suggesting his star witness was motivated by money.

The case is New York v. Trump, 452564/2022, New York State Supreme Court, New York County (Manhattan).

(Updates with comment by Trump in third paragraph)

--With assistance from Laura Davison.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Peter Jeffrey at pjeffrey@bloomberg.net

Steve Stroth, Anthony Aarons

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