Replies to post #452775 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[Zorax]

Please be true...

[fuagf]

JUSTICE. Judge Rules Trump Committed Fraud, Stripping Control of Key Properties

"Judge rules Donald Trump defrauded banks, insurers while building real estate empire"

The decision in a lawsuit that could go to trial next week is a major win for Attorney General Letitia James, who says former President Donald J. Trump overvalued his holdings by as much as $2.2 billion.


The judge’s decision represents a major blow to Donald J. Trump, whose lawyers had sought to persuade the judge to throw out many of the claims against the former president.Credit...Rachel Mummey for The New York Times

By Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess
Sept. 26, 2023Updated 6:53 p.m. ET

A New York judge ruled on Tuesday that Donald J. Trump persistently committed fraud by inflating the value of his assets, and stripped the former president of control over some of his signature New York properties.

The decision by Justice Arthur F. Engoron is a major victory for Attorney General Letitia James in her lawsuit against Mr. Trump, effectively deciding that no trial was needed to determine that he had fraudulently secured favorable terms on loans and insurance deals.

Ms. James has argued that Mr. Trump inflated the value of his properties by as much as $2.2 billion and is seeking a penalty of about $250 million in a trial scheduled to begin as early as Monday.

Justice Engoron wrote that the annual financial statements that Mr. Trump submitted to banks and insurance companies “clearly contain fraudulent valuations that defendants used in business.”

Ms. James, in a brief statement, said, “We look forward to presenting the rest of our case at trial.”

A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christopher M. Kise, indicated that he would appeal the decision, which he called “outrageous” and “completely disconnected from the facts and governing law.” He said that the judge ignored an earlier appeals court ruling and “basic legal, accounting and business principles.”

While the trial will determine the size of the penalty, Justice Engoron’s ruling granted one of the biggest punishments Ms. James sought: the cancellation of business certificates that allow some of Mr. Trump’s New York properties to operate, a move that could have major repercussions for the Trump family business.

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Understand New York State’s Civil Case Against Trump [.. links inside .. ]

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An empire under scrutiny. Letitia James, New York State’s attorney general, has been conducting a yearslong civil investigation into former President Donald Trump’s business practices, culminating in a lawsuit that accused Trump of “staggering” fraud. Here’s what to know:

The origins of the inquiry. The investigation started after Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, testified to Congress in 2019 that Trump and his employees had manipulated his net worth to suit his interests.

The findings. James detailed in a filing what she said was a pattern by the Trump Organization to inflate the value of the company’s properties in documents filed with lenders, insurers and the Internal Revenue Service.

Trump’s lawsuit. In December 2021, Trump sued James, seeking to halt the inquiry on the grounds that the attorney general’s involvement in the investigation was politically motivated. In May, a federal judge dismissed the suit.

Invoking the Fifth Amendment. In August, Trump faced questions by the attorney general under oath. He declined to answer anything and invoked his right against self-incrimination, leaving James with a crucial decision: whether to sue the former president or seek a settlement.

Fraud lawsuit. In September, James’s office rebuffed a settlement offer from Trump’s lawyers. Days later, she filed a lawsuit against Trump and his family business, accusing them of a sweeping pattern of fraudulent business practices. In October, Trump filed a suit in Florida, accusing James of trespassing on his right to privacy and seeking to halt her case.

The possible penalties. James is seeking to bar Trump and three of his adult children — Eric, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. — from ever running a business in the state again. Her office has also referred the findings to federal prosecutors in Manhattan.
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The decision could terminate his control over a flagship commercial property at 40 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan and a family estate in Westchester County. Mr. Trump might also lose control over his other New York properties, including Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan and his golf club in Westchester.

The order will not dissolve Mr. Trump’s company, which is a collection of hundreds of entities, but the decision could nonetheless have a sweeping impact on the heart of its New York operations. If Justice Engoron’s decision is not reversed by an appeals court, it could shut down an entity that employs hundreds of people working for him in New York, effectively crushing the company.

“The decision seeks to nationalize one of the most successful corporate empires in the United States and seize control of private property,” Mr. Kise said.

While Ms. James’s civil case had been overshadowed by the four criminal indictments of the former president — which are unrelated to Ms. James’s accusations — the judge’s decision, if it stands, will represent the first punishment to emerge from a government investigation into Mr. Trump.

Justice Engoron’s decision narrows the issues that will be heard at trial, deciding that the core of Ms. James’s case was valid. It represents a major blow to Mr. Trump, whose lawyers had sought to persuade the judge to throw out many claims against the former president.

In his order, Justice Engoron wrote scathingly about Mr. Trump’s defenses, saying that the former president and the other defendants, including his two adult sons and his company, ignored reality when it suited their business needs. “In defendants’ world,” he wrote, “rent-regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air.”

“That is a fantasy world, not the real world,” he added.

The judge also levied sanctions on Mr. Trump’s lawyers for making arguments that he had previously rejected. He ordered each to pay $7,500, noting that he had previously warned them that the arguments in question bordered on being frivolous.

Repeating them was “indefensible,” Justice Engoron wrote.

Mr. Trump still has an opportunity to delay the trial, or even gut the case. Mr. Trump has sued Justice Engoron himself, and an appeals court is expected to rule this week on his lawsuit. But if the appeals court rules against him, Mr. Trump will have to fight the remainder of the case at trial.

Mr. Trump has long been his own most dedicated promoter and for years has acted as a booster for the value of his buildings and his brand. For years, the possibility that Mr. Trump was fraudulently exaggerating the value of his assets has intrigued prosecutors, and the Manhattan district attorney’s office at one point came close to indicting Mr. Trump for misrepresenting their value.

The current district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, declined to pursue that case, but later indicted the former president in connection with a hush money payment to a porn star.

A Guide to the Various Trump Investigations [.. links inside .. ]
Confused about the inquiries and legal cases involving former President Donald Trump?
We’re here to help.

Key Cases and Inquiries: The former president faces several investigations at both the state and the federal levels, into matters related to his business and political careers. Here is a close look at each.

Case Tracker: Trump is at the center of four criminal investigations. Keep track of the developments in each here.

What if Trump Is Convicted?: Will any of the proceedings hinder Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign? Can a convicted felon even run for office? Here is what we know, and what we don’t know.

Ms. James started investigating Mr. Trump in March 2019 and filed a lawsuit against him last September, accusing him of “staggering” fraud in representing the value of his apartment buildings, hotels and golf clubs, among other assets. Her filings have accused Mr. Trump of using simple, duplicitous tricks to multiply the represented value of his signature properties, from Trump Tower to Mar-a-Lago.

In one noteworthy example, she accused Mr. Trump of overestimating the size of the triplex apartment in Trump Tower in which he lived for decades, saying it was 30,000 feet, rather than about 11,000. Justice Engoron seized on that, noting that Mr. Trump’s lawyers had “absurdly” suggested that the calculation of square footage was subjective and adding that good-faith measurements might vary by as much as 10 to 20 percent, but not 200 percent.

“A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud,” he wrote.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers had asked Justice Engoron for a so-called summary judgment — a ruling that they were entitled to a victory before trial based on undisputed facts — seeking to toss out many claims against him. They relied heavily on an appeals court ruling from June that raised the notion that some claims against Mr. Trump might be too old to proceed to trial.

Justice Engoron denied Mr. Trump’s request, interpreting the appeals court ruling the opposite way that they had argued, while granting Ms. James’s similar bid for partial summary judgment.

Mr. Trump, a Republican, has denied all wrongdoing and accused Ms. James, a Democrat, of political persecution. His lawyers have noted that the banks that lent Mr. Trump money were hardly victims: they turned profits. They also argued that valuing property can be subjective, more art than a strict science.

“The court disregarded the viewpoint of those actually involved in the loan transactions who testified there was nothing misleading, there was no fraud, and the transactions were all highly profitable,” Mr. Kise said in his statement. He added that there was “zero evidence of any default, breach, late payment or any complaint of harm.”

But Justice Engoron, with whom Mr. Trump’s lawyers have tangled at every turn, mocked those arguments.

“The documents do not say what they say; that there is no such thing as ‘objective’ value,” the judge wrote, summarizing his take on their arguments, and adding, “Essentially, the court should not believe its own eyes.”

In a footnote, he added a line from the movie “Duck Soup” uttered by Chico Marx: “Well, who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?”

Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney's office, state criminal courts in Manhattan and New York City's jails. More about Jonah E. Bromwich

Ben Protess is an investigative reporter covering the federal government, law enforcement and various criminal investigations into former President Trump and his allies. More about Ben Protess

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/26/nyregion/trump-james-fraud-trial.html

[Zorax]

Pretty good stuff. But let's be honest. None of that is going to happen any time soon. Just on the assholes lawyers delaying everything. For one, I know two cases out in California where a scumbag penny fraud lived in a mansion for years, didn't pay on it for the last two or three years, was foreclosed on 4 times in the last two years and never once was kicked out. Until late last year when the bank finally sold it out from under him and then he got to stay there another 3 months. Almost the same with another case.

Cheeto 'the orange slug' isn't going anyplace soon. I honestly strongly want to be wrong, but I doubt I am. The ball is rolling though, however slow, but plodding along. Delays every step of the way, every day. That's his way.

Let’s be clear. This isn’t a death sentence, this is the blade of the guillotine coming down. Anything Trump or his monkey spawn own or operate through the targeted LLC’s are now frozen. If I’m reading the law correctly, once the receivership begins, Trump and the other defendants lose all access to the designated properties and assets.

Which means if Mar-A-Lago is titled to one of those entities, Trump is about to be homeless. The same thing for Bedminster, and other properties. So long to Trump Force One, Traitor Tot can fly in coach with everybody else. There was recent reporting that His Lowness had actually transferred control of Mar-A-Lago over to Donnie Jr. since he got the death sentence too, it makes no difference.

[fuagf]

Ruling Against Trump Cuts to the Heart of His Identity

Judge rules Donald Trump defrauded banks, insurers while building real estate empire

The finding by a judge in a New York civil case that Donald Trump committed fraud in valuing his real estate properties undermined the narrative of the business career that launched him in politics.


Former President Donald J. Trump faces not only the prospect of having to pay $250 million in damages, but he could also lose properties
that are inextricably linked to his brand. Doug Mills/The New York Times

By Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer

Maggie Haberman has reported on Donald Trump for several decades and wrote a book
about his rise to the presidency. Alan Feuer covers the prosecutions of Mr. Trump.

Sept. 27, 2023Updated 12:33 p.m. ET

Nearly every aspect of Donald J. Trump’s life and career has been under scrutiny from the justice system over the past several years, leaving him under criminal indictment in four jurisdictions and being held to account in a civil case for what a jury found to be sexual abuse .. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/09/nyregion/trump-liable-verdict-form-jury.html .. that he committed decades ago.

But a ruling on Tuesday .. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/26/us/trump-judges-ruling.html .. by a New York State judge that Mr. Trump had committed fraud .. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/26/nyregion/trump-james-fraud-trial.html .. by inflating the value of his real estate holdings went to the heart of the identity that made him a national figure and launched his political career.

By effectively branding him a cheat, the decision in the civil proceeding by Justice Arthur F. Engoron undermined Mr. Trump’s relentlessly promoted narrative of himself as a master of the business world, the persona that he used to enmesh himself in the fabric of popular culture and that eventually gave him the stature and resources to reach the White House.

[Insert: Of course since at least 2016 this board has helped to expose Trump as a failure and a fraud in the business world:
We already know what Donald Trump does when he loses: He acts like it never happened.
How he responded to business setbacks could predict what he'll do if he isn't the next president.
[...]When Donald Trump loses, he lashes out, assigns blame and does whatever it takes to make a defeat look like a win. When that isn’t plausible, he pronounces the system rigged — victory wasn’t possible because someone put in the fix.
P - In a roller-coaster career in which glittering buildings and a flamboyant lifestyle have been tempered by bankruptcies and failed ventures, Trump has consistently fought — often successfully — to recast each defeat as proof of his strategic savvy. He has reacted to failure by exploding in anger and recrimination, then moving on to very different ventures, though always in arenas where he can vie for public admiration.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=126350390]

The ruling was the latest remarkable development to test the resilience of Mr. Trump’s appeal as he seeks to win election again despite the weight of evidence against him in cases spanning his years as a New York developer, his 2016 campaign, his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and his handling of national security secrets after leaving office.

The federal case accusing him of plotting to retain power despite his defeat at the polls three years ago paints him as a threat to democracy, as does a similar prosecution in Georgia. The classified documents case portrays him as willing to obstruct justice to cover up a reckless disregard for the laws that govern the handling of such documents. A New York prosecution stemming from hush-money payments to a porn star in the closing stages of the 2016 election sets out evidence of the kind of political skulduggery he professes to want to eradicate from Washington.

So far none of those cases has discernibly hurt Mr. Trump’s campaign in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, which polls suggest he is leading by large margins. In fact, polls show the indictments have consolidated his support among Republicans. The prosecutions have helped his fund-raising.


Mr. Trump visiting campaign workers in South Carolina. Doug Mills/The New York Times

Whether the effect of Justice Engoron’s ruling is any different remains to be seen. But his finding imperils both Mr. Trump’s public image and his business empire. The former president now faces not only the prospect of having to pay $250 million in damages, but he could also lose properties like Trump Tower that are inextricably linked to his brand.

Mr. Trump’s lawyer in the case, Christopher M. Kise, called the ruling “outrageous” and said the decision would be appealed. He called it “completely disconnected from the facts and governing law.”

“The decision seeks to nationalize one of the most successful corporate empires in the United States and seize control of private property all while acknowledging there is zero evidence of any default, breach, late payment or any complaint of harm,” Mr. Kise said.

[Every villain deserves a defense, NO, every villain does not deserve any fucking thing, yet our 'rule of law' countries give villains a defense. Still the points put by Trump's lawyers are fantastical. 'Not consistent with facts and law' c'mon. Who's kidding whom. Then it's nationalize a business, FEAR SOCIALISM!! What utter crap!]

Mr. Trump, in a lengthy post on his social media site, called the statements in the ruling about fraud “ridiculous and untrue,” and said the decision was a political attack against him in the midst of the presidential campaign.

In all of Mr. Trump’s recent legal travails, his typical tactics for self-preservation have largely failed him. When cornered, Mr. Trump has traditionally sought to bluster his way out of trouble, falling back on exaggerations or outright lies to escape.

These methods have served him well in the business and political arenas, where there is often little price to pay for bending the truth and where voters tend not to distinguish between gradations of prevarications. Those methods, though, have been much less effective so far in the courts, which operate according to strict standards of veracity and staid and sober rules.

In straightforward terms, Justice Engoron punctured Mr. Trump’s bubble of protective falsehoods about the way he conducted his business.

“In defendants’ world,” Justice Engoron wrote, “rent-regulated apartments are the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air.”

A Guide to the Various Trump Investigations [.. inside ,. ]

“That is a fantasy world,” the judge went on, “not the real world.”

Mr. Trump’s other weapon of choice — bullying his adversaries — has not fared much better in the courts. This month, federal prosecutors asked the judge overseeing his federal election interference case to impose a gag order on him .. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/22/us/politics/trump-gag-order-free-speech.html , citing his “near daily” social media attacks on people involved in the proceeding and the threats .. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/24/us/politics/trump-prosecutions-threats-violence.html .. they were generating.

Mr. Trump blew past an early warning from the judge in that case, Tanya S. Chutkan, to be mindful about what he said concerning the witnesses, prosecutors and potential jurors in the case. But if he thought he could simply muscle through the judge’s admonition, prosecutors called his bluff. Now Mr. Trump has placed himself on what could be a collision course with the judge that could result in his public statements being curbed in the middle of his presidential campaign.

Mr. Trump is being constrained by the very system he often uses to try to stymie opposition: the courts. In the last two years, Mr. Trump has filed a blizzard of legal actions against news networks, political critics and even the Pulitzer Prize committee. Several of those cases have been dismissed.

But Justice Engoron’s decision hinted at a trait that has long defined Mr. Trump’s personality and approach to doing business. He has always sought to create his own reality, often getting away with it — up to a point.

In a 2006 lawsuit that Mr. Trump filed against the journalist Timothy O’Brien, the author of the book “TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald,” which estimated that Mr. Trump’s net worth was no greater than $250 million, the future president sat for a deposition and made a surprising statement about how he calculates the value of his holdings.

“My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with the markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings, but I try,” Mr. Trump said.

A judge ultimately dismissed his suit.

Maggie Haberman is a senior political correspondent and the author of “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.” She was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on President Trump’s advisers and their connections to Russia. More about Maggie Haberman

Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence. He joined The Times in 1999. More about Alan Feuer

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/27/us/politics/trump-fraud-ruling.html