Former President Trump was ordered to pay more than $350 million after a judge held him liable for inflating the value of his real estate assets.
© Daniel DeLoach/Utica Observer-Dispatch / + © Seth Harrison / USA TODAY NETWORK
(New York, NY) – New York Judge Arthur Engoron has ordered former President Trump to pay $354 million in his civil fraud trial. The decision comes after Engoron had already found Trump liable, for inflating the value of his real estate holdings, allegedly to secure more favorable terms from lending companies and insurance firms. Trump’s adult sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have been ordered to pay $4 million, given their role with the Trump Organization.
In addition to the upward of $360 million in fines, Judge Engoron has suspended the Trump Organization’s business license for three years.
New York Attorney General Tish James brought the case against Trump and his company. She had been seeking $370 million in fines and the outright dissolution of the Trump Organization’s license to do business in the state. It’s expected that Trump and his attorneys will immediately appeal the case and look for it to be heard in the New York Court of Appeals.
Trump has described the proceedings as a witch hunt that’s political in nature, noting AG James campaigned that she would “get Trump,” one way or another. He also explains that none of the insurance firms or lenders in question have claimed they weren’t paid back in full — or that they were wronged in anyway. For that reason, some have called it a “victimless crime” even if values listed on loan documents were inaccurate by some measure. Others have pointed out that real estate valuation is speculative, and market-based, making it especially troubling a court would decide it is the ultimate arbiter of price or value.
