After five decades of playing fast and loose with the laws of New York, and a plenary of fraud, deception and corruption, legal appeasement seems to be declining and legal accountability seems to be ramping up as the proverbial hens are finally returning home to roost for the former Houdini of white-collar crime, Donald J. Trump.
First, there was the civil judgment of 5 million dollars awarded to the writer E. Jean Carroll by a federal jury of Trump’s peers. Then there was a second judgment of $83.3 million in damages awarded to Carroll by another jury of Trump’s peers for the additional defamatory statements that he continued to make after the first judgment was rendered for denying that he had sexually assaulted Carroll. And then there was the New York civil fraud decision by Judge Arthur Engoron holding Trump and his sons, Eric and Don, Jr. financially liable to the tune of more than $350 million underscoring “the extent of Trump and the Trump Organization’s white-collar malfeasance.” Last week, Judge Engoron turned down a request by Trump’s lawyers to postpone payment.
