Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump, and Donald Trump Jr. (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)
New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) on Friday, as ordered, filed a lengthy document outlining her proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law ahead of scheduled Jan. 11 closing arguments in former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial. Those proposed findings, the AG said, should lead Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron to ban Trump for life from the New York real estate industry and slap him with a $370 million disgorgement penalty for “repeated and persistent fraud.”
In the filing, James asserted that Trump, former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, and former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney have each earned “lifetime” bans from “participating in the real estate industry in New York State or from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity” because they “worked together for years to inflate Trump’s net worth while concealing the fraud from counterparties.”
Noting that Engoron in a September summary judgment ruling found Trump and his eldest sons Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump liable for “repeated and persistent fraud,” canceled business certificated, and appointed retired Judge Barbara S. Jones as an independent monitor for the Trump Organization ahead of trial, James said the evidence is clear that “between 2014 and 2021, defendants overvalued the assets . . . between $812 million and $2.2 billion dollars,” that they “committed the alleged illegal acts with the requisite intent to defraud when they employed numerous deceptive schemes to falsely inflate more than a dozen assets on the SFCs (statements of financial condition) over 11 years,” and that they “reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains” as a result.
New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press conference regarding former US President Donald Trump and his family’s financial fraud case on Sept. 21, 2022 in New York. (Photo by YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images)
Because of that, James said, “lifetime injunctions” barring Trump, Weisselberg, and McConney from doing real estate business in New York are “necessary and appropriate.”
As for Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump? The attorney general proposed a five-year ban:
For Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, the current co-leaders of the company, a five-year bar on participating in the real estate industry in New York State or serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity is necessary and appropriate. The evidence establishes that Eric Trump was aware of and participated in the fraudulent scheme at least as early as 2012. (Supra II.A.2.e) In 2017, Donald Trump, Jr. took over responsibility for the SFC together with Weisselberg. Under their direction, the scheme continued unabated through 2021. And even if the Court were to credit their claims that they had no knowledge of what was contained in the SFCs or how the asset values were calculated, a bar would be appropriate, nevertheless. The two would have falsely certified time and again that they were responsible for the preparation of the statements, familiar with their contents and could assure counterparties that they were fair and accurate. If Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump certified as to those facts with no real knowledge of the SFCs, those lies are equally damaging to counterparties.
In addition, James proposed a $370 million disgorgement penalty — “plus interest.” She wrote that Trump and “each entity defendant he controls should be jointly and severally liable for disgorgement of the decreased interest costs incurred during the period July 14, 2014 through the present.”
Judge Arthur F. Engoron presides during former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023, at New York Supreme Court in New York. (Shannon Stapleton/Pool Photo via AP)
Finally, the attorney general argued that Barbara Jones’ independent monitorship “should be extended for at least five years in the final judgment.”
Read AG James’ proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law here.
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