Donald Trump was fined nearly $355 million (€329 million) in New York on Friday February 16 for a series of financial frauds within his real estate empire, the Trump Organization. This unprecedented decision is accompanied by a three-year ban for the former President of the United States from any business management in the State of New York.
The former President of the United States, candidate for a return to the White House, his sons Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump appeared in a long civil trial from October to January, accused of having enormously inflated the value assets of their family empire Trump Organization. The Attorney General of the State of New York, Letitia James, elected Democrat, who filed a civil complaint in the fall of 2022 for financial fraud, demanded $370 million in compensation from them.
The father and his sons Trump are accused of having colossally inflated during the 2010s the value of skyscrapers, luxury hotels and golf courses around the world at the heart of the Trump Organization to obtain more favorable loans banks and better insurance conditions. Certain assets, such as the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, are emblematic of the success of the businessman who entered politics on his image as a successful builder.
“Repeated” frauds
Even before the trial, Judge Engoron, with whom Donald Trump has execrable relations, had judged the fraud to be constituted. The magistrate had estimated that the New York State Attorney General’s Office of Letitia James presented “conclusive evidence that between 2014 and 2021 the defendants [had] overvalued the assets” of the group from “812 million to 2.2 billion dollars,” depending on the year.
As a result of “repeated frauds”, the judge ordered at the end of September the liquidation of the companies managing these assets, such as Trump Tower and the neo-Gothic style and soon to be century-old skyscraper of 40 Wall Street, in the lobby of which Donald Trump gave some of his press conferences after the trial hearings. This decision was suspended on appeal.
The 77-year-old Republican magnate and tribune has continued to rage against a justice system that he considers to be in the hands of the Democrats, denouncing “a trial worthy of a banana republic.” His lawyers argued that the file was legally void.