Hard blow for Donald Trump: the former American president was sentenced, this Friday, February 16, to $355 million in fines for financial fraud within his real estate empire. He is also banned from operating businesses in New York State for three years. The former Republican tenant of the White House (2017-2021), who aims to be re-elected in November against Democrat Joe Biden, castigated a “totally bogus” judgment against which he will “appeal”.
In a 92-page court document, Judge Arthur Engoron of the Supreme Court of the State of New York deprived him 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 in fines.
The attorney general of this state, Letitia James, filed a complaint against Donald Trump in October 2022 and forced him, with his two adult sons Donald Jr and Eric and their family group Trump Organization, to a civil trial for fraud, October to January. The highest judge in the New York state, elected from the Democratic Party, demanded $370 million in compensation. She hailed Friday “an immense victory for this State and this country”.
“Political opponent”
From his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, Donald Trump replied that he was going to “appeal” because “there was no fraud” but “instrumentalization against a political opponent”. On his Truth Social network, the arch-favorite in the Republican primaries for the November 5 presidential election once again denounced “electoral interference” and accused Judge Engoron of being “crooked” and the attorney general “totally corrupt.”
But a legal appeal will not automatically exempt the businessman and political tribune from having to immediately pay the $355 million in fines, warns Brian Quinn, professor of law at Boston College. His lawyer at the trial, Alina Habba, had previously accused X of “incessant persecution” and a “political witch hunt” intended to “take him down”.
Trump father and son appeared several times during this lengthy civil trial, in a tense political climate. They were accused of having colossally inflated during the 2010s the value of the assets of the Trump Organization, their skyscrapers, luxury hotels or golf courses around the world, to obtain more favorable loans from banks and better insurance conditions. Even before the trial, Judge Engoron, with whom Donald Trump has execrable relations, had ruled at the end of September in a shocking order that the fraud had been established.
The magistrate had ruled: the New York public prosecutor’s office had presented during the investigation “conclusive evidence that between 2014 and 2021, the defendants (had) overvalued the assets” of the group from “812 million to 2.2 billion dollars” depending on the year. As a result of “repeated fraud”, Judge Engoron had already ordered the liquidation of the companies managing, for example, the Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in Manhattan or the neo-Gothic style and soon to be century-old skyscraper at 40 Wall Street. A decision which was however suspended on appeal. These buildings are emblematic of the success of Donald Trump, 77, who launched the presidential campaign in 2015 with the image of a successful businessman and builder.
“Pathological”
Judge Engoron also stressed that the amount of the fines against Donald Trump and his sons (some four million dollars each for Donald Jr and Eric Trump) was justified by their behavior during the trial. “Their total lack of contrition and remorse borders on the pathological,” writes the magistrate in his vitriolic order.
“They are simply accused of inflating the value of their assets to make more money […] Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff. However, the accused are incapable of recognizing their errors”, judged Arthur Engoron. During the trial, in the courtroom, in the corridors of the Manhattan courthouse and on the platforms of campaign rallies, Donald Trump had never stopped to storm against justice in the hands, according to him, of President Biden’s Democrats, denouncing “a trial worthy of a banana republic”.
Unlike his criminal trials scheduled this year – such as the one set for Thursday March 25 for payments aimed at silencing a pornographic film star – Donald Trump and his sons did not risk prison in this civil case.