“There has to be some limitation on what the attorney general can do in interfering in these private transactions,” Justice Moulton said, questioning whether the statute used in the case had been applied too broadly.
Trump $489M Civil Fraud Verdict : Fraud Allegations and Massive Penalty
The civil fraud case stems from a lengthy investigation and an 11-week trial where Trump and top Trump Organization executives were found to have inflated his personal wealth to secure more favorable business deals, including loans from Deutsche Bank and Ladder Capital. Evidence presented during the trial showed Trump inflated the value of properties, such as his penthouse apartment and the Mar-a-Lago resort, by as much as $2 billion annually.
Justice Arthur F. Engoron ruled in February that Trump and his businesses committed fraudulent acts, finding deviations from truth amounting to “hundreds of millions of dollars,” and possibly “a billion dollars or more” in the case of Mar-a-Lago. The judgment required Trump to pay $354.9 million, while Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and former CFO Allen Weisselberg were ordered to pay lesser amounts. With interest, the total judgment reached over $489 million.
