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(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
It’s here! Justice Arthur Engoron’s ruling in the Trump civil fraud case is in, and it’s a doozy.
“Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological. They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money. The documents prove this over and over again,” he wrote, adding that “the Court intends to protect the integrity of the financial marketplace and, thus, the public as a whole. Defendants’ refusal to admit error—indeed, to continue it, according to the Independent Monitor—constrains this Court to conclude that they will engage in it going forward unless judicially restrained.
TL, DR?
It’s a shit ton of money, but the reversed the summary judgment from September insofar as it called for the dissolution of the company and liquidation of its assets.
How much money?
- Donald Trump and his various businesses will have to pay $355 million, plus pre-judgment interest of 9 percent going back as far as 2019;
- Eric and Don Jr will each have to pay $4 million, with pre-judgment interest from May of 2022; and
- Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s longtime CFO, will have to kick up $1 million, with interest accruing from January of 2023.
OUCH. And also, that’s almost exactly the $370 million requested by New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office.
But wait, there’s more! Contestants on FAFO will leave with several parting gifts, such as:
- Independent monitor Barbara Jones sticking around to keep them on the straight and narrow for another three years;
- A new Director of Compliance, paid for by the Trump Organization, to make sure it quits doing so damn much fraud;
- A ban on Trump, his boys, Weisselberg, or Jeff McConney, the former Trump Org controller serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York, for at least a couple of years;
- A three-year ban on applying for “loans from any financial institution chartered by or registered with the New York Department of Financial Services for a period of three years.”
Naturally, Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba is sure that this case will be overturned on appeal.
And she hasn’t been wrong yet!
As the Daily Beast’s Jose Pagliery has pointed out, that 9 percent interest, even compounded annually, is going to push this number over $400 million, and that meter will keep running during the pendency of any appeal. On top of which Trump will have to front the cash himself, since the terms of the order would appear to bar him from seeking a bond from any New York lender. And lest we forget, he’s going to have to play the same game in federal court, albeit at a lower interest rate, to halt collections in the $83 million in the Carroll defamation case — another Alina Habba flawless victory!
And that’s a whole lotta money, even for a billionaire.
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.
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