by New York’s attorney general on Friday asked the judge overseeing Donald J. Trump’s civil fraud trial to penalize the former president about $370 million, saying the trial had shown he had earned that amount through illegal conduct.
The sum far exceeded the $250 million that Attorney General Letitia James had estimated in the fall of 2022, when she sued Trump, accusing him of inflating his net worth to obtain favorable treatment from banks and insurers.
The trial began in October and proceedings ended last month, but Trump’s fate is still undecided. The attorney general’s penalty request came in a post-trial brief filed Friday. Trump’s lawyers, in one of his own filings, wrote that “unfortunately the Attorney General has failed to prove his case and is not entitled to any compensation,” including any financial penalties.
In a statement, a Trump attorney, Christopher M. Kise, called the amount “unconscionable, unsupported by evidence, unrealistic and unconstitutionally excessive.”
A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization said that “all members of the New York business community, regardless of sector, should be gravely concerned about this blatant overreach and this brazen attempt by the attorney general to exercise unlimited power where no action occurs.” public or private harm.” has ever been established.”
Next week, attorneys in the case will present their closing arguments before trial Judge Arthur F. Engoron. Trump is expected to attend the proceedings. The nature of Ms James’ claim meant that she had not sworn; Judge Engoron has said he will attempt to issue a ruling later this month.
In addition to the hefty financial penalty, James, a Democrat, is calling for Trump, a Republican, to be banned from participating in New York’s real estate industry and running any business in the state.
Judge Engoron, also a Democrat, has been swayed by Ms. James’ arguments in the past. Before the trial began, she ruled in her favor, finding that Trump had committed fraud by inflating the value of her assets and, therefore, his net worth. Most of the trial focused on whether the former president’s conduct had violated other New York laws, as well as the possible consequences of his wrongdoing.
The trial was a contentious affair, as lawyers for James and Trump clashed over major and minor issues, and the former president frequently attended the proceedings, using the hallway outside the courtroom as a campaign stop. There, he lashed out at the attorney general, the judge, and the judge’s chief law clerk, all of whom he attacked for having political bias, prompting Judge Engoron to issue a gag order prohibiting Trump from commenting on court personnel.
Given the lack of a jury, Ms. James’s attorneys did not appear to feel pressured to sort the dozens of witnesses and the tangle of documentary evidence into a clear story for the courtroom audience to follow. The lawyers’ late presentation on Friday provided their take on some of the trial’s most important issues, including how they had demonstrated Trump’s intent to defraud.
They argued that Trump had done so by telling subordinates each year what his desired net worth was. They also said the defendants had acted in ways that courts “normally consider to infer intent,” including “repeatedly misrepresenting objective facts in relevant documents” and “dissembling, evading and prevaricating on the stand.”
Trump’s lawyers, in their own filings, said no witnesses had testified that the former president – or his two adult children, who are also charged – “had anything more than peripheral knowledge” of the annual financial statements in which Trump calculated the net worth. They also argued that Ms. James’ lawyers had failed to prove intent, writing that “fraudulent intent cannot simply be inferred; It must be definitively proven.”
During the trial, the former president’s lawyers argued that the proceedings had stemmed from Ms. James’s political bias, and repeatedly moved to derail the trial, repeatedly calling for a favorable verdict based on what they said was a lack of evidence. enough. Judge Engoron was not convinced. On Dec. 18, five days after the proceedings ended, the judge denied the motions and appeared dismissive of Trump’s case.
He wrote that some of the attorneys’ arguments “epitomize frivolity,” taking issue with the testimony of their financial experts and again taking issue with Trump’s frequently raised argument that the valuation of the assets in question was subjective.
“Let no one be fooled,” Judge Engoron wrote. “Evaluations, as has been made abundantly clear in this essay, can be based on different criteria analyzed in different ways. But a lie is still a lie.”
Ben protests. contributed reports.
