Published February 16, 2024
Former President Trump’s business empire was dealt a stark blow Friday when a New York judge ordered him to pay more than $355 million for conspiring to alter his net worth to receive tax and insurance benefits.
Judge Arthur Engoron had already found Trump, his business and top executives — including the former president’s adult sons — liable for fraud before the trial began. But his ruling Friday issued penalties that threaten Trump’s billionaire status and the future of the business that skyrocketed him to fame.
Trump’s lawyers decried the ruling as “manifest injustice” and an “unjust political crusade,” while vowing to appeal it.
“Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological,” Engoron wrote in the92-page decision.
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SOURCE: www.thehill.com
RELATED: The Trump fraud trial verdict goes well beyond ordering the ex-president to pay $355 million. Here’s what the ruling means.
Published February 17, 2024
- Trump, his eldest sons, and Trump Org must pay back $364 million pocketed through a decade of fraud.
- Friday’s verdict also bans Trump from running a business in New York for three years — including Trump Org.
- Trump’s frauds “leap off the page and shock the conscience,” the judge wrote.
In a scathing verdict that punishes a decade of deceit, the judge in Donald Trump’s New York civil fraud case on Friday slammed the GOP frontrunner, his two eldest sons, and his company with a nearly $364 million cash penalty.
“The frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience,” said the verdict by New York Supreme Court Arthur Engoron, who has presided over the case for more than three years.
While Trump is personally on the hook for almost $355 million of that penalty, Donald Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump must pay $4 million each. And former Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg $1 million.
But the verdict hits way beyond just Trump’s wallet. It targets his real-estate and golf resort empire, the Trump Organization, and does so in two ways that Trump has pushed against for years.
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SOURCE: www.businessinsider.com
RELATED: Donald Trump hit where it hurts most in New York fraud ruling
Donald Trump built a real estate empire in Manhattan in the 1980s
Published February 17, 2024
Donald Trump’s latest legal loss hits him where it hurts most because it takes aim at his very identity.
For decades, he has marketed himself as a genius business mogul who made it big in one of the world’s most cutthroat cities, in large part because of relentless self-promotion.
That image – forever tied to New York deal-making – catapulted him to international fame, allowing him to reinvent himself first as a reality TV star and then ultimately the president of the United States.
But Judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling in a civil fraud case related to the inflation of property values and lying on financial statements to obtain better loan terms undermines Mr Trump’s entire narrative. It instead paints him as a fraud and inflicts a massive blow to his business empire and wealth.
Donald Trump once remarked that the mind can overcome any obstacle. But what an obstacle this is.
