Judge Arthur Engoron on Friday, February 16, ordered Donald Trump and his organization to pay $355 million (329 million euros) in the trial over the overvaluation of the assets of the Trump real estate empire in the 2010s. This tactic had allowed the real estate mogul to reduce the interest rates paid and to have access to additional credits. The debates had focused on the absence or not of victims, Donald Trump’s bankers, in particular Deutsche Bank, having never complained. Mr. Trump has repeatedly denounced a witch hunt, with the judge and prosecutor Letitia James – who launched the prosecution in 2022 – being both Democrats.
The judge also banned the Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election from holding any corporate office or management position in a company for three years in New York State. He also imposed the sentence on the former president’s adult sons, Eric and Donald Jr., for two years, and ordered them to pay more than $4 million each.
This ban is particularly embarrassing for Eric Trump, who is, specifies the New York Timesthe de facto boss of the real estate empire. “The defendants did not rob a bank at gunpoint. Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff [escroc de Wall Street tombé en faillite en 2008]. But the accused are unable to recognize their error. They are in the “I see no evil, I hear no evil, I say no evil” strategy, a posture that the facts deny., writes the magistrate in his 92-page judgment. Their total lack of contrition and remorse borders on the pathological. »
“Conclusive evidence”
The trial was a bit predetermined. Before he began, Judge Engoron had already ruled that Donald Trump had fraudulently overvalued his assets. The magistrate had estimated that Letitia James’ teams had brought “conclusive evidence that between 2014 and 2021, the defendants [avaient] overvalued assets » from the group of “812 million [à] $2.2 billion » depending on the years. The trial was held without jurors. The issue was to set the penalty imposed on Mr. Trump who immediately denounced the verdict – “A Democratic judge ruled against me in New York!” » – and demanded funds from his supporters. Mr. Trump will undoubtedly appeal but he will have to post bail within thirty days.
The victory of Letitia James, who greeted at the start of the evening “a huge victory for this state, for this country and for anyone who thinks we should all play by the same rules, even former presidents”, is above all the second major defeat for Mr. Trump in two months, after the jury’s verdict in January in a defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll, a journalist he had sexually assaulted. The jury fined him $83.3 million.
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