A state judge Tuesday found Donald Trump and his company liable for fraud for inflating his net worth in order to deceive banks and insurers, resolving one of the key claims in a civil fraud lawsuit brought by the New York state attorney general just days before a trial is set to start.
Attorney General Tish James’ office “has submitted conclusive evidence” that the former president and his co-defendants overvalued their assets by between $812 million and $2.2 billion from the years 2014 to 2021, the judge, Arthur Engoron, wrote in a court filing. “Even in the world of high finance, this Court cannot endorse a proposition that finds a misstatement of at least $812 million to be ‘immaterial.’”
As part of his ruling, the judge canceled the business certificates of all of the defendants, which include the Trump Organization itself and numerous LLCs connected to the company, as well as the business certificates of any entity “controlled or beneficially owned by” Trump, his adult sons, the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg and company executive Jeffrey McConney.
Engoron ordered that within 10 days of the ruling, Trump and the other defendants must provide names of potential independent receivers “to manage the dissolution of the canceled LLCs.”
The ruling, which comes ahead of a trial set for Oct. 2, is a significant defeat for Trump, who built his business career and political campaigns by boasting about his personal and professional achievements, and now instead has been found to have been peddling bogus claims of financial success.
The lawsuit accuses Trump and the other defendants of creating more than 200 misleading evaluations of the company’s finances, as well as other forms of misrepresentation, and it seeks $250 million in damages and a lifetime bar on the Trumps from serving as officers or directors in any New York companies.
In a statement, James said: “Today, a judge ruled in our favor and found that Donald Trump and the Trump Organization engaged in years of financial fraud. We look forward to presenting the rest of our case at trial.”
An attorney for Trump, Chris Kise, said the ruling is “completely disconnected from the facts and governing law,” and vowed to appeal it.
Engoron’s ruling didn’t resolve all of the claims in James’ lawsuit, with the judge saying there are disputed factual issues related to those claims that require a trial. The judge also granted the attorney general’s request to sanction Trump’s lawyers, ordering that each of them pay a $7,500 penalty.