Trump’s lawyers ask appeals court to overturn $489 million civil fraud ruling

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump and his company will argue before an appellate panel on Thursday that a judge’s February ruling convicting Trump should be overturned. must cough up hundreds of millions dollars in profits obtained through fraud, plus millions more in interest.

In his profession In July, Trump’s lawyers called the verdict “draconian” and said the case violated “the Constitution and the sanctity of the complex commercial marketplace.” The judge in the case ordered Trump and his co-defendants to pay the state nearly $364 million in “ill-gotten gains” plus interest — from before and after the verdict — that has now risen to more than $120 million.

The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, which brought the case after a years-long investigation, said in response that Trump’s team reiterated arguments that had previously been rejected. They argued that the judge not only concluded that Trump had violated civil statutes, but also “that the defendants had engaged in criminal, illegal conduct.”

Because the case is a civil one, Trump does not face jail time. The appeal is being heard by the Appellate Division, First Judicial Department of the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan. Oral arguments begin at noon and will be streamed live on the court’s YouTube page.

New York District Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that Trump, his company and top executives — including sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. — defrauded banking partners by falsely inflating Trump’s net worth on financial statements. That deception resulted in Trump and his company getting terms he otherwise would not have received, which leads to huge windfallsconcluded Engoron.

Engoron wrote in the scathing ruling that the “complete lack of remorse and remorse on the part of Trump and his co-defendants borders on pathological.”

He wrote that evidence shows “over and over again” that they falsely inflated Trump’s wealth and reported those fraudulent figures to business associates.

Engoron concluded that Trump and his company had provided the accountants with “clearly false financial information.”

The judge criticized Trump for blaming his employees and others during the hours-long testimony in November 2023 lawsuit. While James’ office and Engoron concluded that Trump’s assets were overvalued, Trump said on the stand that the opposite was true and that his company “underestimated” the value of his properties. He further alleged that the value of his brand was not included in the estimates.

“The numbers that you’re talking about here are, you know, they’re very large numbers, very, very large. Much larger — the values ​​are much larger than what’s on the financial statement,” Trump said, later adding, “billions of dollars more.”

Trump has called these and several other civil and criminal cases against him a coordinated effort to tarnish his reputation and damage his presidential campaign. The appeals court is not expected to rule on his appeal before the election.

The civil fraud verdict is one of three rulings against Trump in New York in the past year that have hit Trump financially and personally. In January, Trump was ordered to more than $83 million in damages against author E. Jean Carroll for defamation — on top of an earlier $5 million verdict in her favor. In May, he was convicted of 34 crimes of falsifying corporate records in his criminal case. Trump is appealing both rulings and has denied all charges.