Donald Trump was fined nearly $355 million by a New York court on Friday February 16 for financial fraud within his real estate empire, the Trump Organization. This unprecedented decision is a blow to the heritage of the former President of the United States, who aims to be re-elected in November.
It is accompanied by a three-year ban for the businessman and Republican tribune from any business management in the State of New York.
In a 92-page court document, New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron deprived Donald Trump of the management of "any business or legal entity in New York for a period of three years" and ordered to pay $354.86 million.
The attorney general of this state, Letitia James, filed a complaint against him in October 2022 and led him, with his two adult sons Donald Jr and Eric Trump and their family group, to a civil trial for fraud, from October to January.
Trump father and son appeared during this lengthy trial, often in an ultra-tense political climate, and were accused of having enormously inflated the value of the assets of their family empire Trump Organization.
“Repeated frauds”
Letitia James demanded $370 million in compensation from them for having caused the value of their skyscrapers, luxury hotels and golf courses to increase colossally during the 2010s throughout the world, to obtain more favorable loans from banks and better insurance conditions.
Certain assets, such as the Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, are emblematic of the success of the businessman, who entered politics on his image as a successful builder.
Judge Engoron, with whom Donald Trump has execrable relations, had ruled that fraud had been established even before the trial.
The magistrate had estimated that the New York State Attorney General's Office had presented "conclusive evidence that between 2014 and 2021, the defendants (had) overvalued the assets" of the group by "812 million (to) 2.2 billion dollars" depending on the year.
As a result of "repeated fraud", the judge ordered at the end of September the liquidation of the companies managing these assets, such as the Trump Tower or the neo-Gothic style skyscraper and soon to be century-old 40 Wall Street, in the lobby of which Donald Trump gave some of his press conferences after the trial hearings. This decision was suspended on appeal.
The 77-year-old Republican magnate and tribune has continued to rage against justice in the hands, according to him, of President Joe Biden's Democrats, denouncing "a trial worthy of a banana republic".
His lawyers argued a case that they said was legally empty.
Unlike criminal trials this year – like the one set for Thursday March 25 for payments to silence a porn star – Donald Trump did not risk prison in this civil case.
With AFP
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