Left: Former President Donald Trump speaks during a break in his civil business fraud trial at New York Supreme Court, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig). Right: Judge Arthur Engoron presides over former President Donald Trump’s civil business fraud trial at New York Supreme Court, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023, in New York. (Spencer Platt/Pool Photo via AP)
Former President Donald Trump, along with some of his family members and business associates, must pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the state of New York for lying about his companies’ finances.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ruled Friday that Trump, his businesses, his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and former Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg owe a combined $364 million to the Empire State.
“The frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience,” the judge said in the 92-page ruling.
Engoron determined that Trump, the Trump Organization, and various Trump business ventures owe a combined $355 million. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are each liable for around $4 million, while Weisselberg must pay $1 million for his role in the fraud.
As one example, Engoron noted Trump’s valuation of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where he is alleged to have wrongfully stored documents from his time in the White House.
“Donald Trump insisted that he believed Mar-a-Lago is worth ‘between a billion and a billion five’ today, which would require not only valuing it as a private residence, which the deed prohibits, but as more than the most expensive private residence listed in the country by approximately 400%,” the judge wrote.
The judge also found that Trump and his associates cannot be trusted to honestly do business in the state, and issued yearslong restrictions on all of them.
“[T]his Court finds that defendants are likely to continue their fraudulent ways unless the Court grants significant injunctive relief,” Engoron wrote.
“The Court hereby enjoins Donald Trump, Allen Weisselberg, and Jeffrey McConney from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for a period of three years,” the ruling says. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are also barred from serving as officers or directors “of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York” for two years.
“The evidence is overwhelming that Allen Weisselberg and [former Trump Organization controller] Jeffrey McConney cannot be entrusted with controlling the finances of any business,” the ruling also says. “Accordingly, this Court hereby permanently enjoins Allen Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney from serving in the financial control function of any New York corporation or similar business entity operating in New York State.”
Trump and his business are also barred from applying for loans “from any financial institution chartered by or registered with the New York State Department of Financial Services for a period of three years,” the ruling says.
Engoron also determined that retired federal judge Barbara Jones will continue her oversight of the Trump businesses.
“[T]he Hon. Barbara Jones (ret.) shall continue in her role as Independent Monitor for no less than three years,” Engoron wrote. In addition, an “Independent Director of Compliance shall be installed at the Trump Organization, at defendants’ expense, to ensure compliance with financial reporting obligations and to establish internal written accounting and financial reporting protocols.” Engoron ordered Jones to provide the court with a list of people she would recommend for the compliance role.
In his ruling, Engoron said that holding Trump and his businesses accountable is necessary to protect the public.
“This Court is not constituted to judge morality; it is constituted to find facts and apply the law,” the ruling says. “In this particular case, in applying the law to the facts, the Court intends to protect the integrity of the financial marketplace and, thus, the public as a whole. Defendants’ refusal to admit error — indeed, to continue it, according to the Independent Monitor — constrains this Court to conclude that they will engage in it going forward unless judicially restrained.”
Engoron noted that former Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen was believable with his testimony, despite having previously pleaded guilty to perjury and offering sometimes contradictory statements at trial.
“[H]e testified that although Donald Trump did not expressly direct him to reverse engineer financial statements, he ordered him to do so indirectly, in his ‘mob voice,”” Engoron wrote. Noting the “palpable” animosity between Trump and Cohen did give Cohen an “incentive to lie,” Engoron “found his testimony credible, based on the relaxed manner in which he testified, the general plausibility of his statements, and, most importantly, the way his testimony was corroborated by other trial evidence.”
“A less-forgiving factfinder might have concluded differently, might not have believed a single word of a convicted perjurer,” the judge wrote. “This factfinder does not believe that pleading guilty to perjury means that you can never tell the truth. Michael Cohen told the truth.”
The decision marks the end of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ massive civil fraud lawsuit against the former president, his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and Trump’s businesses over “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation in the preparation of Mr. Trump’s annual statements of financial condition” from 2011 to 2021. James said that Trump, along with his co-defendants, inflated his net worth by billions and violated the law in doing so.
The $364 million sum is more than quadruple the $83 million in damages Trump owes writer E. Jean Carroll, whom he was found to have defamed after she went public with sexual abuse claims against him.
The civil fraud litigation was brought against the former Republican president, his children, and the Trump Organization in September 2022 by James, a Democrat, and aimed to essentially kick numerous Trump-related entities out of the Empire State.
Engoron had ruled in late September that Trump, his eldest sons, and the family business were all liable for fraud. In a series of three 35-page orders, Engoron found that the 45th president and his namesake company inflated his net worth and grossly overvalued their assets on years’ worth of financial paperwork to bilk banks and insurance companies so that they could “transact business.”
Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, was initially named in the lawsuit but was eventually dismissed.
The trial started on Oct. 2. It was often punctuated by Trump’s repeated violations of Engoron’s orders regarding the former president’s baseless allegations against the judge’s primary law clerk, who Trump said was linked to Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and insisted that it proved the trial was “rigged.” Trump sued Engoron over the gag order, to no avail.
In his ruling Friday, Engoron noted that Trump’s behavior during the trial had an impact on the judge’s ultimate decision.
“Overall, Donald Trump rarely responded to the questions asked, and he frequently interjected long, irrelevant speeches on issues far beyond the scope of the trial,” Engoron wrote. “His refusal to answer the questions directly, or in some cases, at all, severely compromised his credibility.”
As the trial wound down, it briefly appeared that Trump was poised to give closing arguments in the case, Engoron nixed that request, telling lawyers that Trump appeared to be unable to stick to the “relevant” matters underpinning the trial.
Trump is currently facing 91 criminal charges in four different jurisdictions: falsification of business records charges in New York, racketeering and conspiracy charges in Georgia, wrongful retention of documents charges in Florida, and election subversion allegations in Washington, D.C.
According to a press statement, James “will give remarks on her landmark victory in her office’s civil fraud trial against Donald Trump and the Trump Organization” on Friday evening.
Read the ruling here.
Matt Naham, Brandi Buchman, and Adam Klasfeld contributed to this story.
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