The New York District Attorney sues Trump, his children and his company for systematic “fraud”

New York City Attorney Letitia James has filed a fraud lawsuit against former US President Donald Trump, his family business and three of his children. According to the investigation, Trump cheated the system by allegedly overvaluing his net worth by billions of dollars from 2011 to 2021.

The 214-page lawsuit is the culmination of a three-year investigation showing that Donald Trump and his children Ivanka, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., as well as Trump Organization executives Allen Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney, allegedly used the image of wealth and opulence of the former president to make him look like a great businessman who earned millions of dollars when he was a television presenter, as well as during his presidency.

James announced details of the lawsuit at a news conference, saying the case was civil in nature and not criminal and that his office rejected settlement offers made by Trump’s attorneys.

The prosecutor stated that the “investigation revealed that Donald Trump engaged in years of illegal conduct to inflate his net worth, to cheat the banks and the people of the great state of New York.” “Stating that you have money that you don’t have is not the art of dealing. It is the art of theft,” she said.

The prosecutor seeks compensation of 250 million dollars, since, according to her, this would be the approximate value of the benefits that the defendants would have obtained after using these fraudulent practices.

The objective of the alleged scheme would be to boost Trump’s image as a billionaire and the value of his properties, since by doing so he obtained several advantages: he could access favorable loan conditions with cheaper interest, pressure insurers to provide him with more comprehensive coverage at lower premiums while strengthening his image as a business strongman.

Meanwhile, the investigation also indicated that the former president and his company devalued assets on other occasions to obtain tax benefits.

The prosecuting body claims to have found evidence of falsifying business records, issuing false financial statements, insurance fraud, conspiracy acts and bank fraud. James’ office said the findings will be forwarded to federal prosecutors and the Internal Revenue Service.

The former president would have lied when he said that his Trump Tower apartment was 2,787 square meters and not the real 1,096. Meanwhile, his valuation of Mar-a-Lago in Florida was $739 million and not the roughly $75 million he actually costs.

What is the prosecution looking for?

Letitia James, through her office, is seeking the appointment of an independent auditor for at least five years to oversee the Trump Organization’s compliance with financial reporting, appraisals, and disclosures to lenders, insurers, and tax authorities. .

Another matter that James seeks, which is allowed by federal law, is to ban the former president and the Trump Organization from making commercial real estate acquisitions and obtaining loans from New York banks for five years, as well as permanently bar the Trumps from being officials or directors of any company or similar business entity registered and/or licensed in the State of New York.

Officials of the Trump Organization, if found guilty, would be barred from exercising the financial control function of any New York corporation or similar business entity registered and/or licensed in the State of New York.

In addition, the Organization will go to trial in October for a criminal proceeding. He is accused of giving tax-free perks to top executives, including CFO Weisselberg, who received $1.7 million in bonus payments.

The executive pleaded guilty on August 18 and will have to testify at trial. If the Trump Organization is found guilty, it could pay a penalty of twice the amount of the taxes it has not paid.

As Letitia James files this lawsuit, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is conducting a parallel criminal investigation into the same business practices, saying in a statement that “our criminal investigation regarding former President Donald J. Trump, the The Trump Organization and its leadership is active and ongoing.”

The former president testified in August about this case after strong pressure, although in his statement he accepted the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, which allows the accused to remain silent.

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Trump accuses prosecutor James of making a political career with his case

From his social media platform, Truth Social, Donald Trump called the lawsuit “another witch hunt by a racist attorney general,” referring to James, a declared Democrat and African-American.

The former president called James “a fraud who campaigned on a ‘get Trump’ platform, despite the fact that the city is one of the world’s crime and murder disasters under his watch!” .

Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, also lashed out at the prosecutor, accusing her of abusing her authority “by meddling in transactions in which absolutely no wrongdoing has occurred,” adding that the lawsuit “is neither focused on the facts nor in the law, rather, it is focused solely on advancing the attorney general’s political agenda.”

The lawsuit about Trump joins several judicial processes open against the president, who could aspire to re-election in 2024 and squeezes a pillar of the Republican Party a few weeks before the mid-term elections in November, in which this force is play the domain of Congress.

With AP and Reuters