Former President Donald Trump in Clinton Township, Michigan, Wednesday, September 27, 2023. MIKE MULHOLLAND / AP
The civil trial against Donald Trump and two of his children, who are accused of having enormously inflated their real estate assets over the years, begins on Monday, October 2nd in New York and marks the start of a legal marathon for the Republican favorite at the Presidential election 2024. The former president announced Sunday evening that he intends to attend opening arguments in the New York State Supreme Court, where he is called as a witness.
“I will go to court tomorrow morning to fight for my name and reputation,” the former real estate mogul said in a message posted late evening on the Truth Social platform, in which he called New York’s attorney general “corrupt.” and the judge presiding over the case as “unbalanced.” “The whole thing is a farce!!!! “, he also wrote.
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“Repeated scams”
Donald Trump cannot be sentenced to prison in the case, but the trial will provide a preview of the legal events that are likely to disrupt his campaign for the Republican nomination.
Donald Trump has been criminally charged in four separate cases, which has so far done no harm to his popularity with the Republican base, and is due to appear in federal court in Washington starting March 4. He is accused of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election won by Joe Biden.
He is subsequently tried by the New York State judiciary for accounting fraud and, after leaving the presidency, is sent to Florida for negligent handling of confidential documents.
The trial, which begins Monday, took a special turn last week when Judge Arthur Engoron, who presided over the trial, found that “repeated fraud” had been established and that the New York Attorney General’s Office had already proven that Donald Trump and the staff members of his group “overstated” their wealth by between $812 million and $2.2 billion from 2014 to 2021.
A fine of $250 million
As a result, Mr. Engoron ordered the revocation of the New York business licenses of Donald Trump and two of his children, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., executive vice presidents of the Trump Organization, as well as the forfeiture of the companies targeted by the Trump Organization to file a complaint therewith they can be entrusted to the insolvency administrators.
If imposed, these sanctions would “deal a serious blow to Donald Trump’s ability to do business in New York state,” said Will Thomas, a business law professor at the University of Michigan.
Donald Trump, who made his fortune in real estate and casinos in the 1980s and promised to govern the United States like his companies, then lost control of several of his group’s flagships, such as Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in Manhattan. These properties are at the center of prosecutor Letitia James’ allegations: the area of the businessman’s triplex in Trump Tower was tripled and the building at 40 Wall Street was overvalued by $200 to 300 million in the annual financial statements.
The luxury Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida and several Trump Organization golf courses also appear in the file. The prosecutor is also demanding recognition of further violations of financial law and a fine of $250 million.
Dozens of witnesses expected
Donald Trump has always brushed aside the accusations and multiplied the attacks against the prosecutor James, an elected African American Democrat whom he called “racist,” and Judge Engoron, whom he describes as “deranged.” In his Truth Social network, he argued that the lending banks had been compensated “in full, with interest, without default and without sacrifice.” The defense also intends to wage a direct battle over asset valuation.
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The trial promises to be technical, with dozens of witnesses expected, including three of the Trump children, Eric, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, who were originally the subject of the lawsuit but were ultimately not prosecuted, or the Trump Organization’s former finance director, Allen Weisselberg. who was in prison after pleading guilty to tax fraud in another case against the group.
The witnesses also include Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who has become one of his archenemies, as well as employees of lending banks or the accounting firm Mazars, which decided in 2021 to no longer work with the Trump Organization.
Also read: The article is reserved for our subscribers. Donald Trump’s legal problems are at the center of his election campaign