New York prosecutor Letitia James has filed a fraud lawsuit against former US President Donald Trump, his family business and three of his children. According to the investigation, Trump cheated the system by allegedly overstating his net worth by billions of dollars from 2011 to 2021.
The 214-page lawsuit is the culmination of a three-year investigation showing that Donald Trump and his children Ivanka, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., as well as Trump Organization executives Allen Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney allegedly used the image of wealth and opulence of the former president to make him look like a great businessman who earned millions of dollars when he was a television presenter, as well as during his presidency.
James announced the details of the lawsuit at a news conference, saying the case was civil in nature and not criminal and that his office had rejected settlement offers made by Trump’s lawyers.
The prosecutor stated that the “investigation revealed that Donald Trump engaged in years of illegal conduct to inflate his net worth, to deceive the banks and the people of the great state of New York.” “Affirming that you have money that you don’t have is not the art of the deal. It is the art of theft,” she said.
The prosecutor seeks compensation of 250 million dollars, since, according to her, this would be the approximate value of the benefits that the defendants would have obtained after using these fraudulent practices.
The objective of the alleged scheme would be to boost Trump’s image as a billionaire and the value of his properties, since by doing so he obtained several advantages: he could access favorable loan conditions with cheaper interest rates, pressure insurers to provide him with more comprehensive coverage at lower premiums while strengthening his image as a strongman in business.
Meanwhile, the investigation also indicated that the former president and his company devalued assets on other occasions to obtain tax benefits.
The prosecution body claims to have found evidence of falsification of business records, issuance of false financial statements, insurance fraud, conspiracy and bank fraud. James’ office said the findings will be forwarded to federal prosecutors and the Internal Revenue Service.
The former president would have lied when he said that his Trump Tower apartment had 2,787 square meters and not the real 1,096. Meanwhile, his valuation of Mar-a-Lago in Florida was $739 million and not the roughly $75 million he’s actually worth.
What is the prosecution looking for?
Letitia James, through her office, seeks the appointment of an independent auditor for at least five years to oversee the Trump Organization’s compliance with financial reporting, valuations, and disclosures to lenders, insurers, and tax authorities. .
Another thing that James is pursuing, which is permitted under federal law, is to ban the former president and the Trump Organization from making commercial real estate acquisitions and borrowing from New York banks for five years, as well as permanently ban the Trumps from being officials or directors of any company or similar business entity registered and/or licensed in the State of New York.
Trump Organization officials, if found guilty, would be prohibited from exercising the financial control function of any New York corporation or similar business entity registered and/or licensed in New York State.
In addition, the Organization will go to trial in October for a criminal proceeding. He is accused of giving tax-free perks to top executives, including chief financial officer Weisselberg, who received $1.7 million in bonus payments.
The executive pleaded guilty on August 18 and must testify at trial. If the Trump Organization is found guilty, it could pay a fine of double the amount of the taxes it has not paid.
As Letitia James files this lawsuit, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is conducting a parallel criminal investigation into the same business practices, saying in a statement that “our criminal investigation regarding former President Donald J. Trump, the Trump Organization and its leadership is active and ongoing.”
The former president testified in August about this case after strong pressure, although in his statement he accepted the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which allows defendants to remain silent.
Trump accuses prosecutor James of making a political career with his case
On his social media platform, Truth Social, Donald Trump called the lawsuit “another witch hunt by a racist attorney general,” referring to James, an outspoken Democrat and African-American.
The former president said that James is “a fraud who campaigned on a ‘get Trump’ platform, even though the city is one of the world’s crime and murder disasters on his watch!” .
Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, also lashed out at the prosecutor, accusing her of abusing her authority “by meddling in transactions in which there has been absolutely no violation,” adding that the lawsuit “does not even focus on the facts nor in law, rather, it focuses solely on advancing the attorney general’s political agenda.”
The lawsuit against Trump joins various judicial processes open against the president, who could aspire to re-election in 2024 and squeezes a pillar of the Republican Party a few weeks before the midterm elections in November, in which this force is plays the dominance of Congress.
With AP and Reuters
