Former President Donald Trump (left) speaks during a break in his civil fraud trial in October (AP Photo/Seth Wenig). Right: Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron (Spencer Platt/Pool Photo via AP)
While denying yet another motion for a directed verdict, Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial judge expressed clear contempt for the former president’s expert witnesses, writing that one only proved that “for a million or so dollars, some experts will say whatever you want them to say.”
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron on Monday denied for the sixth time a Trump motion for a directed verdict, which the high-profile defendant’s lawyers sought to “terminate immediately all remaining causes of action” in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ (D) case against the Trump Organization, the former president, Donald Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump.
While the case is on a break until January, Clifford Robert, an attorney for the defendants, last Friday filed a letter motion arguing that James’ evidence is “simply insufficient” to show that the state is entitled to “disgorgement,” which is the “remedy requiring a party who profits from illegal or wrongful acts to give up any profits they made as a result of that illegal or wrongful conduct.”
“In sum, there was no fraud, there were no victims, there has simply been no harm or actionable misconduct, and the Court must and should follow the law of the case regarding the scope of the claims at issue. The Attorney General cannot establish herein any intent, any materiality, any conspiracy, any ‘ill-gotten gains’ or ‘unjust enrichment’, or anything redressable under Executive Law § 63(12),” the letter said.
AG James’ office responded Monday by calling the Trump motion “beyond frivolous” on the substance.
“Defendants are once again ‘whistling past the graveyard’ by relying on arguments the Court has already rejected and making factual assertions that are squarely contradicted by the evidence or have no record support at all,” the state said, before ridiculing Trump’s witnesses as the “most ineffective team of experts that Defendants’ money can buy.”
“Defendants cite to their experts in contending that ‘property valuation is necessarily subjective, such that there is not only one true or correct legitimate value for any given property.’ So what? The trial was never about whether the assets in the SFCs were valued at their ‘one true or correct legitimate value,’ but rather whether Defendants intentionally inflated the estimated current values of assets listed in the SFCs, thereby creating false business records, issuing false financial statements, and committing insurance fraud,” the state said. “As the People will demonstrate in their post-trial brief and closing argument, Defendants did these illegal acts and must now disgorge their ill-gotten gains.”
It’s clear that Engoron, who found Trump, his eldest sons, and family business liable for fraud in a September summary judgment ruling, wasn’t impressed by the former president’s expert witnesses Eli Barton, a professor, and Jason Flemmons.
In his latest denial of the directed verdict, Engoron said the “most glaring flaw” among the “fatal flaws” of Trump’s motion “is to assume that the testimony of defendants’ experts […] is true and accurate, or at least the Court, as the trier of fact, will accept it as true and accurate.”
“Bartov is a tenured professor, but all that his testimony proves is that for a million or so dollars, some experts will say whatever you want them to say,” the judge wrote, before referring to his summary judgment ruling. “His overarching point was that the subject statements of financial condition were accurate in every respect. As this Court discussed in excruciating detail in its September 26, 2023, summary judgment decision, the Statements of Financial Condition (‘SFCs’) contained numerous obvious errors.”
“By doggedly attempting to justify every misstatement, Professor Bartov lost all credibility,” Engoron continued. The judge tacked on a footnote to the end of that broadside that said Bartov “suffered essentially the same fate” when he testified in a years-old Exxon case.
The judge wasn’t much kinder to Flemmons.
“Mr. Flemmons acknowledged that he had never valued property, much less was he a valuation ‘expert,’ but he attempted to opine on values,” Engoron said. “The crux of Mr. Flemmons’ testimony was that so long as defendants selected one of the ‘methods’ that ASC 274 permits, then any numbers may be entered into such methodology, regardless of their accuracy or relationship to reality.”
The judge also called it inexplicable that Flemmons “acknowledged that future income had to be discounted to present value on a financial statement, while at the same time stating there were no Generally Accepted Accounting Principles departures where defendants failed to apply a discount rate to future income.”
Calling Trump team arguments that the state lacks standing the personification of “frivolity,” Engoron again referred to the “material misstatements” made about the square footage of the former president’s Trump Tower Triplex. Recall: the judge previously found that the square footage of the Trump Tower Triplex where Trump has lived for decades was overestimated by “a factor of three.” Engoron was memorably unmoved by defense arguments that calculating square footage is a “subjective process.”
On Monday, Engoron wrote, “But a lie is still a lie.”
“Valuing occupied residences as if vacant, valuing restricted land as if unrestricted, valuing an apartment as if it were triple its actual size, valuing property many times the amount of concealed appraisals, valuing planned buildings as if completed and ready to rent, valuing golf courses with brand premium while claiming not to, and valuing restricted funds as cash, are not subjective differences of opinion, they are misstatements at best and fraud at worst,” the judge wrote.”
In response to the judge’s order, Trump unleashed a series of Truth Social posts calling “Runaway Judge” Engoron “corrupt and radical,” and a “political hack” who “Illegally and Unconstitutionally Gagged me and my lawyers, in a brazen and blatant attempt to prevent us from bringing vital information to the Public and the Courts.”
Trump also called Letitia James “The Racist Attorney General.”
“Hopefully there is a Court somewhere in the Land that can stop this rogue, out-of-control Judge, and corrupt, and thoroughly biased Attorney General, from getting away with this egregious act,” one Trump post said.
In another post, Trump stated “there was no no money lost by the Insurance Companies, there was no money lost by anyone, there was no victim, in fact, these were all wonderful Transactions … as stated by the relevant Institutions.”
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