The civil fraud trial against Donald Trump and his sons will last three months, from October to Christmas, with the former President of the United States accused by New York state courts of “inflating” his fortune by billions of dollars between 2011 and 2021
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A New York court judge had already determined that this non-jury trial would begin on October 2 in Manhattan.
In an order released Friday, he specified that the debates would continue through Dec. 22, just before the first Republican Party primary on Jan. 15 in Iowa (centre). The favorite is Donald Trump, who dreams of returning to the White House.
Preliminary hearings are scheduled to take place in late September.
Ahead of this civil trial, New York State Attorney General (equivalent to regional attorney general) Letitia James on Friday again sent hundreds of pages of charging documents against Donald Trump and his two eldest sons, Donald Jr and Eric, to the local Supreme Court.
This is intended to support the lawsuit the judge filed in September 2022 seeking $250 million in damages from Mr. Trump, his sons and their family group, the Trump Organization, for tax and financial fraud.
This Democratic Party-elected prosecutor accuses the Republican billionaire and his children of “intentionally” manipulating the valuations of the group’s assets – golf clubs, luxury hotels and other properties – up and down in order to obtain better loans from banks receive or reduce their taxes.
According to court documents released by Ms. James on August 30, Mr. Trump is suspected of “falsely inflating the value of his assets by billions of dollars” each year between 2011 and 2021 – including during his time as president from 2017 to 2021.
These fluctuations were then estimated to be “between 17% and 39%, or between $812 million and $2.2 billion” per year.
In a new “conservative” estimate released Friday by the attorney general’s office, the overvaluation of Mr. Trump’s assets amounts to “between $1.9 billion and $3.6 billion per year.”
The subject has repeatedly denounced a “ridiculous” case led by a “racist” African-American judge.