Trump ordered to pay $354m to New York for lying to banks
A judge has ruled that former President Donald Trump must pay nearly $355 million to New York State for providing false information about the values of his properties.
Judge Arthur Engoron has additionally imposed a three-year ban on Trump from serving as a company director or obtaining loans from banks within the state. Despite the ruling, Trump’s companies avoided dissolution, which could have led to bankruptcy.
Trump, speaking from his Florida estate, expressed his intention to appeal the decision, denouncing it as a politically motivated attack by a “crooked New York state judge.” He criticized the ruling as a sad day for the country.
In his ruling, Judge Engoron cited previous allegations of misconduct to justify the significant penalties imposed on the defendants. He specifically referenced the Trump Organization’s conviction in a criminal tax fraud case in 2022, highlighting the lack of contrition and remorse displayed by the organization’s leaders.
Judge Engoron characterized the fraudulent activities uncovered as egregious and condemned the defendants’ apparent lack of remorse. Despite the severity of the ruling, Trump’s business empire avoided the most severe consequence – the revocation of its business licenses, also known as the corporate death penalty.
Instead, the judge ordered two tiers of oversight – an independent monitor to report to the court for up to three years and a separate independent director of compliance to be installed.
The judge is also requiring Mr Trump pay interest on the profits he made by committing the fraud (known as “prejudgment interest”), which could bring the final amount penalty total to around $450m.
Along with what Mr Trump has been ordered to pay, his two adult sons and co-defendants, Donald Jr and Eric, must each pay $4m. They are barred for two years from doing business in New York, while another co-defendant, Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, has been ordered to pay $1m.
Additionally, Mr Trump, his company, and its affiliates cannot apply for loans in New York for three years.
Both of Mr. Trump’s sons denounced the ruling on social media, with Donald Jr claiming the judgment was politically motivated and Eric calling the judge “a cruel man”.
In her civil case, New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, had accused all four defendants and the wider Trump Organization of massively inflating property values and lying on financial statements so they could borrow large sums of money at favorable interest rates. She had asked for a fine of $370m.
Speaking on Friday, she said: “There cannot be different rules for different people in this country, and former presidents are no exception.”
“Donald Trump may have authored the art of the deal, but he perfected the art of the steal,” she told a news conference.
In September, Judge Engoron ruled Mr Trump was liable for business fraud, finding he had misrepresented his wealth by hundreds of millions of dollars.
In one instance, the judge found Mr Trump’s financial statements had wrongly claimed that his Trump Tower penthouse was almost three times its actual size.
The subsequent 43-day trial that took place late last year and included testimony from 40 witnesses, focused mostly on determining penalties against Mr Trump.
Judge Ergoron’s ruling lays out in detail his reasoning, often diving deep into finance and accounting practices and directly addressing testimony from experts and witnesses.
“In order to borrow more and at lower rates, defendants submitted blatantly false financial data to the accountants, resulting in fraudulent financial statements,” he wrote. “When confronted at trial with the statements, defendants’ fact, and expert witnesses simply denied reality, and defendants failed to accept responsibility.”
Judge Engoron may have made a thorough record expecting that Mr Trump would appeal, legal experts told the BBC.
Mr Trump vehemently denied wrongdoing throughout the trial. In a six-minute speech during closing arguments in January, Mr. Trump declared himself an “innocent man” and called the case a “fraud on me”.
And the former president said repeatedly that he paid his lenders, which meant there was no crime.
While in his ruling Judge Engoron acknowledged that no banks were hurt, he added that “the next group of lenders to receive bogus statements might not be so lucky”.
The latest penalty comes on top of the $83.3m Mr Trump owes writer E Jean Carroll in a separate defamation case. But while the amount is high, it is not expected to bankrupt a man whose total net worth has been estimated at $2.6bn.
