Donald Trump is once again appealing a blockbuster fraud penalty against the president and his real-estate empire after his political adversary, New York Attorney General Letitia James, won a multi-million dollar verdict against his sprawling family business.
Last year, a fractured state appeals court in New York tossed a $500 million penalty against Trump and his associates after judges determined the penalty, which has ballooned with interest, was “excessive.”
But the court upheld Justice Arthur Engoron’s findings that the president and his business partners committed brazen fraud, falling short of the vindication that the president sought through the courts.
The court also upheld an order that blocks Trump and his two eldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric Trump, from serving as officers of a New York business for up to three years and from applying for loans from any financial institution with a New York branch for three years.
Trump now is calling on the state’s highest court to throw out those restrictions and the remaining fraud ruling, which his legal team claimed is based on politically motivated and “legally and factually baseless” and “demonstrably wrong” arguments.
The 119-page appeal called on the court to “put an end to this legally deficient case.”
They accused New York’s attorney general — who was has since been targeted by Trump’s Department of Justice after her victory in the fraud case — of “unconstitutional selective enforcement.”
“The reason here was pure politics, as Attorney General James’s own statements make clear,” they wrote.
James’s office declined to comment to The Independent but her office is due to submit a response to the court by June 23.
In 2024, Engoron’s verdict in Manhattan determined that Trump and his co-defendants in his Trump Organization empire had illegally enriched themselves by defrauding banks and investors as part of a decade-long scheme to secure favorable financing terms for some of his brand-building properties.
The decision followed a bench trial and three-year investigation by James’s office, who had accused Trump and his associates of fraudulently convincing banks and lenders to give them favorable financing terms based on bogus and inflated financial statements.
Trump, his companies and trust were ordered to pay the state more than $354 million, though the total “disgorgement” owed back to the state among all the defendants — money that is effectively forfeited as “ill-gotten gains” — continued to grow with interest.
In August, a panel of five judges in New York’s mid-level Appellate Division said the judgment is unconstitutional.
“While harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half billion-dollar award to the state,” wrote appellate Judge Peter Moulton in a lengthy ruling that spanned more than 300 pages.
But the ruling preserved the findings of fraud at the heart of the case, which James said at the time “should not be lost to history.”
Trump’s latest appeal follows his administration’s ongoing attempts to prosecute the attorney general after a federal judge tossed out allegations of mortgage fraud against her, among several attempts to prosecute the president’s perceived political enemies that have fallen apart in court.
In the case against James, two grand juries declined to bring charges against her, and a judge in November ruled that the top federal prosecutor presiding over the case was unlawfully serving in the role.
“I remain fearless in the face of these baseless charges as I continue fighting for New Yorkers every single day,” James said in a statement at the time.
In a very telling speech, Hegseth said the quiet part out loud about Iran ceasefire
Leavitt insists Americans ignore Trump’s words on Iran and focus on the bottom line
Inside mediators’ last-ditch effort to secure Iran truce as ‘talks were almost dead’
Here’s how long it will take for gas prices to start coming down after Iran ceasefire
Trump has ‘unchecked power,’ says Schumer in call for Iran war powers vote
Democrat at center of ‘illegal orders’ video says she’d consider a presidential run
