Former President Donald Trump‘s legal battles have escalated with the commencement of a civil fraud trial in New York on Monday, raising concerns for his business interests as he aims for a political comeback, all while dealing with four lingering criminal cases.
Judge Arthur Engoron’s earlier decision is a key factor in Monday’s case, as it determined that Donald Trump and his sons, Eric and Don Jr., committed fraud by inflating the value of the Trump Organization’s real estate and financial assets.
Late on Sunday night, Donald Trump confirmed his intention to attend the trial’s commencement on Monday morning.
‘I’m going to Court tomorrow morning to fight for my name and reputation,’ the 77-year-old wrote on his Truth Social platform.
‘This whole case is a sham!!!’ he added.
Besides the ongoing civil case, Donald Trump is bracing for several high-profile criminal trials in the months that follow.
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A federal judge in Washington has scheduled Donald Trump’s appearance for March 4, where he faces charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden emerged as the winner.
Once his Washington appearance concludes, Donald Trump will head back to a New York state court to confront criminal charges involving hush money, and then he will appear in a Florida federal court, where allegations of mishandling classified documents after leaving office await him.
Trump will also face state charges in Georgia, where prosecutors assert that he engaged in illegal actions to alter the 2020 election results in the southern state to his advantage.
Judge Engoron’s decision in the New York civil case found that Donald Trump, alongside his two eldest sons and other key Trump Organization figures, was involved in a scheme. This scheme spanned several years and entailed providing misleading information to tax assessors, lenders, and insurers, resulting in an exaggerated property valuation of $812 million to $2.2 billion between 2014 and 2021.
In response to this ruling, Judge Engoron revoked the business licenses that had granted the Trump Organisation the authority to run specific properties in New York.
Actually enforcing such penalties would be ‘a major blow to Donald Trump’s ability to do business in the State of New York going forward,’ Will Thomas, a professor of business law at the University of Michigan, told AFP.
The increasing legal pressure on Donald Trump, who gained fame and wealth as a real estate mogul in the 1980s and promised to apply his industry acumen in the White House, raises the possibility of him losing control over many of his company’s premier properties, such as the renowned Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in Manhattan.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, has reported that Donald Trump’s own apartment within the building was one of the spaces subject to fraudulent overvaluation, with its size inflated to three times its actual dimensions.
Allegations from New York Attorney General Letitia James suggest that the financial disclosures for a different Manhattan property, 40 Wall Street, were overstated by a significant $200 to $300 million.
Included in Attorney General Letitia James’s complaint are Donald Trump’s prestigious Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, the location of the classified documents controversy, as well as various other golf clubs operated by the Trump Organisation.
In the entirety of her proposal, Attorney General Letitia James is striving for $250 million in penalties and the expulsion of Donald Trump and his sons from their managerial positions within the family empire.