Very Stable Genius Trump Hammered to Tune of $350 Million in Fraud Trial
Former President Donald Trump must pay the state of New York over $350 million in damages for widespread bank fraud, Justice Arthur F. Engoron ruled on Friday.
That charge comes with an addendum that Trump cannot serve as an officer or director of a New York company for three years, including his own. His two sons were also penalized by the ruling—they’ll have to stay out of New York business for two years. All in all, Trump will owe roughly $354 million for the real estate-related fraud. His two sons will owe $4 million each.
Trump and the Trump Organization also cannot obtain loans from any New York financial institutions for a period of three years.
Altogether, the verdict delivers a significant blow to the former president’s stockpile of cash, who reportedly holds roughly $600 million in liquid assets.
“Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological,” Engoron wrote in his ruling. “They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money. The documents prove this over and over again.”
The verdict caps a draining four-month civil trial of the former president that began after Engoron ruled that New York Attorney General Letitia James had already proven Trump committed bank fraud. In the ensuing months, Trump railed against the justice and his court staff for alleged bias, baselessly claiming that Engoron’s chief legal aid had a romantic relationship with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, ushering a swarm of far-right harassment onto her and the rest of Engoron’s court.
In the weeks after the trial, while the world awaited Engoron’s ruling, news broke that Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, was negotiating a plea deal with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office that forced him to admit he lied while on the witness stand in this trial. Weisselberg was also penalized $1 million in Friday’s ruling.
This is the second recent judgment against Trump that vastly outweighs the original asking price in damages. When the trial began in October, James requested that the state punish Trump and his two sons, Don Jr. and Eric Trump, also Trump Organization executives, to the tune of $250 million. But after significant grandstanding about his alleged net worth during his deposition, James asked in a post-trial brief that the state penalize him for $120 million more, bringing the total sum up to $370 million, a little more than Engoron’s final ruling on Friday.
In January, another federal jury ordered the former president to pay writer E. Jean Carroll a whopping $83.3 million for defamation—more than eight times what her legal team had originally requested. That judgment came after another court found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and ordered him to pay the writer $5 million.
With these verdicts, Trump now owes more than $440 million in damages.
Trump’s bank fraud trial was full of drama, including a formal gag order on the boisterous GOP front-runner after he railed against the justice and his court staff, claiming that Engoron’s principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, was dating Senator Chuck Schumer. Trump also shared Greenfield’s Instagram details, effectively ushering a scourge of far-right sympathizers onto her social media accounts.
Trump subsequently violated his gag order twice, resulting in $15,000 in collective fines and the threat of jail time in a civil trial that was never supposed to result in incarceration.
Trump is expected to try to appeal the verdict, just as he did in the E. Jean Carroll trial, but will have to either come up with the cash or secure a bond within 30 days to do so.
“This verdict is a manifest injustice—plain and simple. It is the culmination of a multi-year, politically fueled witch hunt that was designed to ‘take down Donald Trump,’ before Letitia James ever stepped foot into the Attorney General’s office,” Trump attorney Alina Habba said in a statement.
This story has been updated.