New York AG Requests Appeals Court to Uphold Trump’s $454M Fraud Ruling

New York Attorney General Letitia James urged a state appeals court on Wednesday to uphold a lower court’s decision that found former President Donald Trump, along with his adult sons and his company, liable for a fraudulent scheme. This scheme allegedly inflated Trump’s net worth by as much as $2.2 billion. James argued that the judge “properly ordered defendants to disgorge only the ill-gotten profits of their wrongdoing.”

In February, Trump requested that the New York Appellate Division’s First Department overturn the ruling made by Judge Arthur Engoron, who mandated Trump to pay $454 million for fraud. Judge Engoron described the fraudulent behavior as actions that “leap off the page and shock the conscience.”

The attorney general’s office contended that the appellate court should dismiss Trump’s appeal. They emphasized that Judge Engoron made the correct decision in asserting that Trump and his co-defendants utilized deceptive methods to significantly misrepresent the values of Trump’s assets.

Oral arguments for Trump’s appeal are set for September 26.

During an extensive civil trial that spanned 11 weeks and concluded in February, Judge Engoron determined that Trump had exaggerated his net worth. This included valuing his personal apartment as if it were three times its actual size and estimating his Mar-a-Lago estate’s worth without considering existing deed restrictions. Engoron discovered that Trump and his co-defendants had relied on these misleading financial statements to conduct business on more than two dozen occasions between 2014 and 2021.

Assistant solicitor general Daniel Magy pointed out in Wednesday’s filing that the defendants notably ignored the majority of their deceptions during the appeal process.

The defense team argued that the attorney general had incorrectly interpreted New York Executive Law 63(12) and claimed that Trump’s alleged business fraud did not have any identifiable victims or incurred monetary losses.

Magy countered, explaining that the defendants were misguided regarding the legal principles involved. He asserted that the state was not obligated to demonstrate that individuals suffered losses or relied on Trump’s financial statements.

He further explained that a primary objective of law § 63(12) is to safeguard the honesty and integrity of commercial markets in New York. It aims to halt fraudulent practices and illegal activities before they can lead to financial losses for participants in the market or harm to the wider public.