NY Appealing Dismissal of Trump’s $464 Million Fraud Penalty

New York Attorney General Letitia James is asking the state’s highest court to reinstate a nearly half-billion dollar fraud penalty against President Donald Trump and his company in a civil fraud lawsuit after an intermediate appeals court tossed out the massive fine.

James filed a notice appeal on Thursday indicating she’ll take the case to the New York Court of Appeals in Albany. A five-judge panel last month vacated the $464 million penalty, saying it was excessive, even as it upheld a finding that Trump was liable for inflating the value of his real estate assets for years to get better terms on loans.

Both sides are challenging the appeals court ruling, with James seeking to reinstate the penalty and Trump trying to reverse his liability and other sanctions, including a temporary ban on the president and his sons serving as corporate officers in New York. Trump filed his notice with the court last week. The new appeal could take months to resolve.

James, a Democrat, sued Trump and his sprawling real estate company in 2022, alleging he reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in “illegal profit” by inflating the value of assets, including his Mar-a-Lago estate and his Trump Tower penthouse, for years to get better terms on loans from Deutsche Bank AG and other lenders. James won after an 11-week bench trial.

The ruling on appeal was handed down by a deeply divided panel of five judges that issued three competing opinions, none of which got a majority. They all agreed to vacate the fine, but split on whether Trump was liable for fraud. The divide led to a compromise in which four judges ultimately affirmed liability even though only two of them actually agreed with that outcome. The fifth judge said the whole case should have been tossed out.

Read More: Trump Appeal in Fraud Case Likely Despite His ‘Total Victory’

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

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.net

Peter Blumberg

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