New York judge finds Trump guilty of financial fraud

It is a fundamental decision before the actual start of a civil trial against the 77-year-old Republican next week.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James sued Trump and his three eldest children in September 2022 over allegations of financial fraud. The Trump Organization family holding company is alleged to have overstated assets by billions of dollars between 2011 and 2021 in order to “secure and maintain loans and insurance on more favorable terms,” ​​according to a court document from the attorney general’s office.

The action left the defendants with “hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten savings and profits,” the document continued. Attorney General James is seeking, among other things, penalties of $250 million (around 235 million euros).

The lawsuit was originally directed against Trump’s three eldest children, Ivanka, Donald Junior and Eric Trump. However, Ivanka has since been removed from the lawsuit.

The civil trial against Trump, his two eldest sons and several other defendants in New York will begin next Monday. With his ruling on Tuesday, Judge Engoron already anticipated an important decision about how this is possible in such proceedings. One question in the process will be, among other things, how high the punishment will be against Trump. The ex-president is not threatened with a prison sentence in this civil case.

The situation is different in four criminal cases in which Trump was indicted this year. The Republican was initially indicted in New York in the spring over a hush money payment to a porn actress before the 2016 presidential election. This was followed by an indictment by the federal judiciary in the affair surrounding secret documents that Trump had taken from the White House to his private estate at Mar-a-Lago in the US state of Florida.

At the beginning of August, Trump was also indicted by the federal judiciary for his attempts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and thus stay in power. This was followed in mid-August by an indictment in the southern state of Georgia on similar allegations.

Lawyers want to be appointed

“Today’s outrageous decision is completely disconnected from the facts and applicable law,” said Christopher Kise, a lawyer for Trump, in a statement on Tuesday (local time). Trump himself described the allegations as “ridiculous and untrue” and speaks of a “witch hunt”.

“President Trump and his family will exhaust all legal remedies available to correct this miscarriage of justice,” he added. In a post on his own social media platform “Truth Social,” the ex-president himself described the allegations as “ridiculous and untrue” and called the trial “a witch hunt like never before.” He lambasted Arthur Engoron as a confused judge acting at the behest of Democrat and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who sued Trump and his family business for fraud in September 2022.

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