From The NYTimes:
A New York judge ruled on Tuesday that Donald J. Trump persistently committed fraud by inflating the value of his assets, and stripped the former president of control over some of his signature New York properties.
From The Washington Post:
A judge overseeing a $250 million lawsuit against Donald Trump ruled the former president and his company committed fraud by inflating his net worth in business transactions, narrowing the scope of what the state’s attorney general must prove at an upcoming civil trial.
New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron also ordered the cancellation of Trump business certificates and imposed sanctions on attorneys representing him, two of his adult children, two other company executives and the business for repeating arguments that failed multiple times previously and were called “borderline frivolous.”
You can read the ruling here.
Then there's this also from The NYTimes:
The ruling came as part of the New York attorney general’s civil case against Mr. Trump. The attorney general, Letitia James, has accused the former president of fraudulently overstating the value of his assets on annual financial statements by as much as $2.2 billion a year in order to receive favorable terms on loans and benefits.
In the ruling, the judge, Arthur F. Engoron, agreed that Mr. Trump committed fraud when he sent those statements to banks and insurance firms. A trial in the case could start as soon as Monday; if Mr. Trump does not successfully have the ruling reversed before then, the proceeding will largely focus on the size of the penalty against him. Ms. James is seeking a fine of $250 million.
For instance, and this is from the ruling:
This Court takes judicial notice that the Trump Tower apartment in which Donald Trump resided for decades (the Triplex ) is 10,996 square feet. Between 2012-2016, Donald Trump submitted SFCs falsely claiming that the Triplex was 30,000 square feet, resulting in an overvaluation of between $114-207 million dollars. The misrepresentation continued even after defendants received written notification from Forbes that Donald Trump had been overestimating the square footage of the Triplex by a factor of three.
In opposition, defendants absurdly suggest that the calculation of square footage is a subjective process that could lead to differing results or opinions based on the method employed to conduct the calculation. Well yes, perhaps, if the area is rounded or oddly shaped, it is possible measurements of square footage could come to slightly differing results due to user error. Good - faith measurements could vary by as much as 10-20%, not 200%. (p. 21) [Italics in original.]
And followed closely by
A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living
space of decades, can only be considered fraud. (p. 22)
And so on.
He's a fraud. And has been for a long long time.
