Lawyers for Donald Trump and the state of New York are launching a last-ditch effort to make their case in the former president’s civil business fraud trial.
Both sides filed court papers Friday outlining their decisions from more than 10 weeks of testimony this fall.
A preview filing of closing arguments, set for Thursday. Judge Arthur Engoron said he hoped to rule on the decision later this month.
New York Attorney General Letitia James filed the lawsuit. It accused the former president and current Republican presidential candidate of defrauding banks and insurance companies by massively inflating his net worth.
Trump denied any wrongdoing and said the case was a political attack by Democrats.
The case could bar him from doing business in the state where he built his real estate empire.
Launching a last-ditch effort to make their case, New York state attorneys and defense attorneys for Donald Trump filed court papers Friday highlighting their views from more than 10 weeks of testimony in his civil business fraud trial.
The filing previews closing arguments, set for Thursday, in the ensuing lawsuit for the leading Republican presidential candidate even as he fights four criminal cases in various courts.
The New York civil case could end up barring him from doing business in the state where he built his real estate empire.
The former president faces four criminal cases in different courts. Getty Images
New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the lawsuit, which accuses Trump, his company and its top executives of defrauding banks and insurance companies by massively inflating his net worth. James argued that Trump gets attractive rates for loans and insurance because of the wealth he claims on his personal “statement of financial condition,” or “SFC” for short.
The suit alleges that the documents give inflated values for golf courses, hotels and more, including Trump’s former home in his namesake tower in New York and his current home at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
“The conclusion that the defendants intended to defraud when preparing and certifying Trump’s SFC is inescapable,” Kevin Wallace, an attorney in James’ office, wrote in a filing Friday. “The various fraudulent schemes they use to inflate asset values and hide facts are so outrageous that they belie innocent explanations.”
Eric Trump was one of many who testified that there was no wrongdoing. Andrea Renault/ZUMA/SplashNews.com
The defendants, including his son Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, denied any wrongdoing.
The former president insists that his financial statements are actually billions of dollars undervalued, and that any overestimates — such as valuing his Trump Tower penthouse at nearly three times its actual size — are mere errors and make no difference to the overall picture of his wealth. .
He also said that the document was essentially bulletproof because they said the numbers were not audited, among other caveats. Receivers understand that as a starting point for their own analysis, advocates say.
Friday’s filing from Trump’s defense saw closing arguments for the case. AP
“Errors or misrepresentations happen all the time in accounting,” attorneys Michael Madaio and Christopher Kise wrote in a Friday filing for Trump, the Trump Organization and some of its executives.
Such mistakes do not count as fraud unless there are signs of concealment, forgery, fraud or the like, and there are none, the lawyer said.
Separately, defense attorneys argued that the claims against Executive Vice President Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. should be rejected because they never had “anything more than peripheral knowledge or involvement in the creation, preparation or use” of their father’s financial statements.
The sons relied on the work of other Trump Organization executives and an outside accounting firm that prepared the documents, attorneys Clifford Robert and Michael Farina said, echoing the descendants’ own testimony.
Their father also took the stand and made a stream of comments in the courtroom.
He considers the case a political move by James, Judge Arthur Engoron and other Democrats, saying they are abusing the legal system to try to cut his chances of winning back the White House this year.
The decision is up to the judge because James brought the case under state law that does not allow juries.
Engoron said he hopes to make a decision by the end of this month.
He will weigh in on claims of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records. But he ruled before trial on the lawsuit’s main claim, finding Trump and other defendants engaged in fraud for years.
With that ruling, the judge ordered receivers to take control of some of the former president’s properties, but an appeals court has frozen the order for now.
Now, James is seeking additional penalties of more than $300 million and wants Trump banned from doing business in New York.
During the trial, Engoron fined Trump a total of $15,000 after finding that he violated a gag order that prevents all trial participants from publicly commenting on the judge’s staff. T
His order was imposed after Trump defamed the judge’s chief law clerk.
Trump’s lawyers are appealing the gag order.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
