On Friday, Judge Arthur Engoron ruled against former President Donald Trump, imposing a $355 million penalty in a case with no victims.
Engoron also barred Trump “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,” according to the 92-page decision.
“This verdict is a manifest injustice — plain and simple,” Alina Habba, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, said in a statement. She added, “given the grave stakes, we trust that the Appellate Division will overturn this egregious verdict.”
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His decision comes after an 11-week trial in a lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who claimed Trump committed years of financial fraud to gain benefits while building his business.
“In order to borrow more and at lower rates, defendants submitted blatantly false financial data to the accountants, resulting in fraudulent financial statements,” Engoron ruled. “When confronted at trial with the statements, defendants’ fact and expert witnesses simply denied reality, and defendants failed to accept responsibility or to impose internal controls to prevent future recurrences.”
Engoron previously determined in a September decision, which is on hold pending appeal, that Trump defrauded banks and insurance companies by inflating his net worth and overestimating the value of his assets. He ruled in September that Trump’s business licenses should be revoked and his corporations dissolved.
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Engoron also ordered Trump’s sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. to pay approximately $4 million each. Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s former Chief Financial Officer, was ordered to pay $1 million.
James argued in her closing brief earlier this month that Trump and his company should be required to pay $370 million, up from the $120 million she initially requested.
In November, Engoron rejected Trump’s motion for a mistrial as “utterly without merit.” Trump claimed there was “tangible and overwhelming” evidence of Engoron’s bias, and that he was “co-judging” with his law clerk, Allison Greenfield, who had engaged in “public partisan activities.”
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Engoron issued a gag order in October, prohibiting Trump from publicly discussing members of his staff in response to the former president’s Truth Social post about Greenfield. He later imposed $5,000 and $10,000 fines for violating the order.
According to an Associated Press analysis of nearly 150 civil cases spanning 70 years, Trump’s real estate empire is the only large business that has faced dissolution under the state’s anti-fraud law.
Trump will appeal this decision.
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