Trump civil fraud case: Judge fines Trump $354 million, says frauds 'shock the conscience'
The former president was found to have defrauded lenders.
Former President Donald Trump has been fined $354.8 million plus approximately $100 million in interest in a civil fraud lawsuit that could alter the personal fortune and real estate empire that helped propel him to the White House. In the decision, Judge Arthur Engoron excoriated Trump, saying the president's credibility was "severely compromised," that the frauds "shock the conscience" and that Trump and his co-defendants showed a "complete lack of contrition and remorse" that he said "borders on pathological."
Engoron also hit Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump with $4 million fines and barred all three from helming New York companies for years. New York Attorney General Letitia James accused Trump and his adult sons of engaging in a decade-long scheme in which they used "numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation" to inflate Trump's net worth in order get more favorable loan terms. The former president has denied all wrongdoing and has said he will appeal.
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Summary of penalties
Donald Trump and his adult sons were hit with millions in fines in the civil fraud trial and barred for years from being officers in New York companies. The judge said the frauds "shock the conscience."
Donald Trump: $354 million fine + approx. $100 million in interest
+ barred for 3 years from serving as officer of NY company
Donald Trump Jr.: $4 million fine
+ barred for 2 years from serving as officer of NY company
Eric Trump: $4 million fine
+ barred for 2 years from serving as officer of NY company
Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg: $1 million fine
+ barred for 3 years from serving as officer of NY company
+ barred for life from financial management role in NY company
Former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney:
+ barred for 3 years from serving as officer of NY company
+ barred for life from financial management role in NY company
Eric Trump clarifies testimony about email
Eric Trump clarified his earlier answer regarding his involvement in his father's statement of financial condition, in which he was asked if he recalled a 2013 email from then-Trump Organization controller Jeff McConney asking him for notes for the statement.
"I clearly understood I sent notes to Jeffrey McConney," Eric Trump testified.
"I don't think that it ever registered [that] it was for a personal statement of financial condition," he said.
Eric Trump acknowledges email about financial statement
Eric Trump responded angrily when a state attorney questioned his previous statement that he was unaware that information he provided was being used in his father's statement of financial condition.
"We're a major organization. A massive real estate organization," Eric Trump said, raising his voice, before acknowledging he was aware of his father's financial statements, which are at the center of the case.
State attorney Andrew Amer pressed Eric Trump about a 2013 email in which then-Trump Organization controller Jeff McConney told Eric Trump, "I'm working on the notes to Mr. Trump's annual financial statement..."
"Is it correct that when you received this email in August of 2013, you understood that your father had an annual financial statement and you understood that Mr. McConney was asking you for information to assist with notes for that financial statement?" Amer asked.
"Yes," Eric Trump said.
Judge is 'hurting my very good children,' Trump says
Former President Trump took to social media to criticize Judge Engoron after Donald Trump Jr. yielded the witness stand to his brother Eric.
"Engoron is a wacko who is having a great time endlessly sanctioning, fining, & pushing around 'TRUMP,' hurting my very good children, & working to damage & defame me," the former president wrote on Truth Social.
As he he left the courthouse following his testimony, Trump Jr. told reporters, "I think it went really well, if we were actually dealing with logic and reason."
He reiterated that he relied on the Trump Organization's accountants to put together the financial statements at issue, and that he was not responsible for their contents.
"Before even having a day in court, I'm apparantly guilty of fraud for relying on my accountants to do -- wait for it -- accounting," Trump Jr. said. "You pay experts millions of dollars to be experts, you sign off on what they give you, and you're liable?"
'I did not work' on financial statements, Eric Trump says
"Sorry to be brash," Eric Trump began a 2012 email to a board member of a North Carolina golf club that the Trump Organization intended to purchase, according to materials entered into evidence.
The board member had come to New York to review financial documents to be assured the Trump organization had the "financial wherewithal to purchase, renovate and operate the club," state attorney Andrew Amer said while questioning Eric Trump.
Amer contended that meant Eric Trump knew "the company had personal financials available to share with third parties," despite the former president's son testifying that "I don't want to speculate" what was being shared.
"I understood we had financials as a company. I was not personally aware of the statement of financial condition," Eric Trump said. "I did not work on the statement of financial condition. I've been very clear about that."
Trump's business drew little scrutiny from bank, defense says
Deutsche Bank was a serious company in business with Donald Trump to make money, defense attorney Jesus Suarez said during his cross examination of former Deutsche Bank executive Nicholas Haigh.
At the height of its relationship with the Trump Organization the company loaned Trump over $378 million, and failed to commission independent appraisals of Trump's properties, Haigh acknowledged. While the bank listed lower estimates for the value of Trump's assets year after year, it continued to do business with Trump and his company.
"We ... the bank hadn't done all the due diligence one would do in the sense of the opinion of value you see in an appraisal," Haigh said, at one point agreeing with the defense's characterization that the bank's internal value services group conducted "sanity checks'' on the numbers.
The direct examination of Haigh by state attorney Kevin Wallace also left a central question about Deutsche Bank's activity unanswered.
In a letter to the court and in previous arguments, lawyers for the attorney general suggested that Haigh might have turned away Trump's business if he had known that Trump's assets were inflated in value.
"As this Court noted during summary judgment arguments, Mr. Haigh testified during OAG's investigation that he may not have authorized lending to the borrower if he had at that time been aware of the inflated asset values contained in Mr. Trump's SFCs [statements of financial condition]," a lawyer for the attorney general wrote to the court in a letter last week.
Wallace never directly posed the hypothetical to Haigh during his direct examination, leaving the question unresolved.
Court subsequently adjourned for the day, with Suarez telling the court he plans to continue his cross examination of Haigh through Thursday afternoon.