Donald Trump’s New York business fraud trial reaches closing arguments

Donald Trump (Europa Press/Contacto/Laura Brett)

New York state lawyers on Friday increased their request for sanctions in Donald Trump’s civil business fraud trial, as his defense argued that more than 10 weeks of testimony produced no evidence of fraudulent intent or ill-gotten gains.

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Both sides highlighted their conclusions from the trial in court documents before closing arguments. Trump is expected to attend, although plans could change.

It will be the last chance for state and defense attorneys to make their arguments in a lawsuit that has implications for the Republican presidential front-runner even as he fights four criminal cases in multiple courts.

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The New York civil case could end up preventing him from doing business in the state where he built his real estate empire, and the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, is now seeking more than $370 million in fines. The figure emerged in her office file on Friday; The state had sought $250 million before the trial, but had increased the figure to more than $300 million during the proceedings.

James’ suit accuses Trump, his company and key executives of deceiving banks and insurers by grossly inflating his net worth. James maintains that Trump obtained attractive rates on loans and insurance because of the wealth he claimed in his personal “statements of financial position,” or “SFCs,” for short.

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The lawsuit alleges the documents gave exorbitant values ​​for golf courses, hotels and more, including Trump’s former home in his namesake tower in New York and his current home at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach. , Florida.

Letitia James (REUTERS/Joy Malone)

“The conclusion that the defendants intended to defraud in preparing and certifying Trump’s SFCs is inescapable,” Kevin Wallace, an attorney with James’ office, wrote in a document filed Friday. “The countless deceptive schemes they employed to inflate asset values ​​and conceal facts were so outrageous that they belie an innocent explanation.”

The defendants, including his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, deny any wrongdoing.

The former president claims that any overestimations, such as valuing his Trump Tower penthouse at nearly three times its actual size, were mere errors and made no difference to the overall picture of his fortune.

He also says the documents are essentially legally bulletproof because they said the figures were not audited, among other caveats. The recipients understood them simply as starting points for their own analyses, the defense says.

None of his lenders testified that they would not have made the loans or charged more interest if their financial statements had shown different figures, defense attorneys wrote in a filing Friday for Trump, his Trump Organization and some executives.

The state “did not provide any factual evidence from any witnesses that the gains were ill-gotten,” attorneys Michael Madaio and Christopher Kise wrote. Nor, they said, was there evidence that the insurers were defrauded.

The former president claims that any overestimations, such as valuing his Trump Tower penthouse at almost three times its actual size, were mere errors (Dave Sanders/Pool via REUTERS)

Separately, defense attorneys argued that the lawsuits against executive vice presidents Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. should be dismissed because they never had “anything more than peripheral knowledge of or participation in the creation, preparation or use” of their financial statements. father.

The children relied on the work of other Trump Organization executives and an outside accounting firm that prepared those documents, attorneys Clifford Robert and Michael Farina said, echoing the children’s own testimony.

His father also took the stand and made a series of comments in the courtroom hallway. He described the case as a political maneuver by James, Judge Arthur Engoron and other Democrats, saying they are abusing the legal system to try to cut off his chances of taking back the White House this year.

The verdict is up to the judge because James brought the case under a state law that does not allow a jury. Engoron has said that he hopes to make a decision by the end of this month.

He will weigh charges of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records. But it ruled before trial on the lawsuit’s main claim, finding that Trump and other defendants engaged in fraud for years. With that ruling, the judge ordered a receiver to take control of some of the former president’s properties, but an appeals court froze that order for now.

In addition to fines of $370 million, plus interest, James wants Trump to be banned from doing business in New York.

During the trial, Engoron fined Trump a total of $15,000 after finding that he violated a gag order prohibiting all trial participants from publicly commenting on the judge’s staff. The order was imposed after Trump defamed the judge’s top law clerk.

Trump’s lawyers are appealing the gag order.

(With information from AP)

2024-01-06 07:59:01
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