As heir to his father’s real estate business in New York, Donald Trump expanded it to the point of becoming a billionaire and a public figure. Now his properties in that state, including some of the best known such as Trump Tower or the iconic 40 Wall Street, could be liquidated. The civil trial that starts this Monday could have serious financial consequences and represent a symbolic defeat for the businessman who once published the book The art of negotiation (The art of negotiation).
New York State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron will still have to clarify what could happen to the Trump family business. What is certain is that Engoron last Tuesday, before the start of the civil trial against the Trump Organization and its team, which also includes Donald Trump and his sons Jr. and Eric, reached an agreement with prosecutor Letitia James, who filed the case in court. case in which the company and Trump were accused of fraudulently overvaluing their assets.
In agreeing with prosecutors in the fraudulent real estate appraisal case, the judge said Trump’s company is living in a “fantasy world.”
The judge ruled that there had been “ongoing fraud” and described a system of overvaluation of assets linked, for example, to the emblematic Trump Tower in New York – where the businessman lived before moving to Florida – and other properties belonging to the group’ 812 million and $2.2 billion” – to negotiate more favorable loans with banks. In one case, the area of a commercial building was inflated by 300 percent and rent-controlled apartments were valued in the same way as buildings where owners are free to fix rents “This is a fantasy world, not the real world,” the judge ruled.
As a result, Engoron ordered the revocation of the business licenses of Donald Trump and his children in New York State and asked the parties to propose “liquidators” responsible for managing the “dissolution of the companies” in question.
In the trial that begins today, Engoron will decide whether Trump and his associates violated other New York state laws. In addition, it will consider whether to impose even harsher penalties than prosecutor Letitia James requested, including $250 million in fines, a ban on Trump and the Trump Organization from obtaining new loans from any bank in New York for five years. York is active. such as banning Trump, his children and other business leaders from running or owning businesses in New York State.
One hypothesis is to transfer control of the companies to a judicial administrator and later liquidate them at public auction.
Despite the fact that there are many uncertainties about next steps, John Coffey, a professor at Columbia University Law School, noted to NPR that Trump is “taking big risks.”
This isn’t the first time Trump has had to pay in court. In 2017, he paid $25 million to resolve a dispute over fraud allegations related to a project he called “Trump University.” In 2019, he spent $2 million to resolve allegations of illegal embezzlement of charitable funds to pay for his political activities. But the first time he was convicted was last December: seventeen charges of tax fraud and falsifying company documents.
Source: DN
