Trump Charged With Fraud in New York Attorney General’s Trial

Trump Charged With Fraud in New York Attorney General’s Trial: For intentionally misrepresenting his net worth by billions to benefit himself and obtain advantageous loans, Donald Trump and three of his children who work in the family real estate business have been named in a civil fraud case by the attorney general of the state of New York.

Letitia James announced the lawsuit in New York on Wednesday. She added that referrals had been made to the Internal Revenue Service and federal prosecutors, which is guaranteed to infuriate the former US president and raise concerns within his closest circle about the severity of his legal situation.

The New York probe, which started while Trump was president and lasted three years, resulted in the deposition of Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump.

The lawsuit demands a five-year ban on the Trump Organization’s ability to purchase any commercial real estate or take out loans from New York-based companies and a ban on all four Trumps working as executives in the city.

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• In a civil lawsuit filed on Wednesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James accused former President Donald Trump of enormous fraud. This came after a three-year investigation into the finances of the family business. Click here to read more…

Now let’s know in detail. James added: “The complaint demonstrates that Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself and to cheat the system, thereby cheating all of us. He did this with the help of the other defendants.”

James stated that her office had reported the situation to the southern district of New York and the IRS after finding evidence of federal criminal crimes, such as making false representations to financial institutions and bank fraud.

The lawsuit states: “The number of grossly inflated asset values is staggering, affecting most if not all of the real estate holdings in any given year.” The lawsuit also aims to recoup at least $250 million and prevent the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization.

Allen Weisselberg, and the comptroller, Jeffrey McConney, from holding senior positions with any New York-based business. Weisselberg, 75, has admitted to tax fraud in a separate criminal case in New York.

James said that Trump and Weisselberg refused to respond to questions during depositions by claiming Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. He continued, “For too long, powerful, affluent individuals in this society have functioned as if the rules do not apply to them.”

“Donald Trump stands out as among the most egregious examples. Trump thought he could get away with the art of the steal but today that conduct ends.”

James’s referral to federal prosecutors in the southern district of New York poses a severe legal risk for the former president and his three adult children even though the New York lawsuit is not a criminal case.

Trump has indicated time and time again that he will seek the presidency in 2024. But he is threatened legally with various inquiries into his attempts to rig the 2020 election and a possible indictment for keeping secret documents.

As is his habit when under examination, the former president and his counsel have denounced the New York inquiry as a politically motivated “witch-hunt” and asserted that the Trump Organization did not engage in criminal activity.

However, James detailed a long list of alleged crimes in the 214-page complaint, including fraudulently raising 23 properties’ values, including the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump Tower in New York City, and the building that once housed the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC.

Between 2011 and 2021, the defendants allegedly made more than 200 fraudulent and deceptive asset assessments in financial documents, according to James. He also detailed the fraud-related tactics she claimed Trump and his firm used.

Mar-a- Lago, the suit says, was valued as high as $739m when it should have been closer to $75m. Additionally, James said that Trump “got a series of bank-ordered evaluations for the commercial property at 40 Wall Street in New York City that put the worth of the property at $200m as of August 2010 and $220m as of November 2012.”

“However, Mr. Trump identified 40 Wall Street in his 2011 statement with a value of $524 million, which grew to $530 million over the following two years, more than double the value determined by the specialists.

“Even more egregious, the $500m-plus valuation was attributed to information from the appraiser who valued the building at just over $200m.”

“Mr. Trump indicated that his apartment encompassed more than 30,000 sq ft, which was the basis for valuing the flat,” James said about Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Mr. Trump knew the apartment’s act was less than 11,000 square feet.

“Based on that inflated square footage, the value of the apartment in 2015 and 2016 was $327m. To this date, no apartment in New York City has sold for close to that amount. Tripling the apartment’s size for the valuation was intentional fraud. Not an honest mistake.”

Trump has frequently charged James as having political motivations. According to Bloomberg News, “members of Trump’s inner circle” believed that James, a Democrat up for re-election in November, could use the action to gather money before he made his declaration.

Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump, charged James with abusing her position by “peeping into transactions where absolutely no wrongdoing has taken place” and claimed the lawsuit “is neither focused on the facts nor the law, rather it is solely focused on advancing the attorney general’s political agenda.”

The lawsuit’s allegations, according to Habba, are “meritless.” On Wednesday morning, James said, “I want to be precise. Financial white-collar crime does not have any victims.”

She said, further referring to Trump’s most well-known ghostwritten book, “Claiming you have money that you do not have does not equate to the art of the deal. The art of stealing is involved.”