New York State is seeking $370 million in compensation from former US President Donald Trump and his sons and their Trump Organization real estate empire in a civil suit alleging financial fraud, documents show. judicial published Friday.
That’s far more than the $250 million that state Attorney General Letitia James requested in her fall 2022 complaint. That request sparked the ongoing civil trial for financial fraud in state court. New York where, since last October, Donald Trump and his sons Donald Jr and Eric have testified.
Reacting immediately on his social network Truth Social, the Republican billionaire campaigning for the November presidential election, once again attacked Letitia James, elected representative of the Democratic Party, whom he accuses of being “corrupt » and to carry out a “witch hunt”.
” I did not do anything wrong. My financial statements are good and very prudent,” Donald Trump assured again on Friday.
With his sons and their Trump Organization family group, they are accused by New York civil justice of having colossally inflated during the 2010s the value of the skyscrapers, luxury hotels or golf courses at the heart of their empire, to obtain more favorable loans from banks and better insurance conditions.
“Banana Republic”
Since the start of the trial in Manhattan on October 2, the 77-year-old businessman has railed against justice each time he comes to court, denouncing a “witch hunt” or a “trial worthy of a banana republic.” . After attacks on his clerk, Judge Arthur Engoron banned Donald Trump from speaking about his team and imposed two fines totaling $15,000 for violating this order.
His lawyers denounce a legally empty file.
Unlike the criminal trials awaiting him this year, including that for his alleged maneuvers aimed at reversing the result of the November 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump does not risk prison time in this civil case.
Even before the opening of the proceedings, Judge Engoron estimated at the end of September that the prosecution presented “conclusive evidence that between 2014 and 2021, the defendants overvalued the assets” of the group by “812 million [à] 2.2 billion dollars” depending on the year, in the figures recorded on Donald Trump’s annual financial statements.
As a result of “repeated fraud,” he ordered the liquidation of companies managing these assets, such as the Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in Manhattan or the 40 Wall Street skyscraper.
Measures, however, suspended by an appeal court.
The trial concerns several other crimes, such as insurance fraud, and the financial penalties claimed by the State of New York, which is now asking for 370 million dollars and no longer 250 million in the initial complaint.
It remains for Judge Engoron to close the proceedings this month and determine the amount of damage and reparations.