Massive Pennality of Civil Fraud against President Trump launched by the Court of Appeal: NPR

NEW YORK – A New York Court of Appeal threw the massive financial sentence on Thursday that a state judge imposed on President Donald Trump, while closely confirming a conclusion that he has engaged in fraud by exaggerating his wealth for decades. The Trump savings decision of a potential fine of half a million dollars, but forbidden it and its two elder sons of serving in the direction of the company for a few years.

Trump, in an article on social networks, won a “total victory”.

“I greatly respect the fact that the court had the courage to make this illegal and shameful decision that injured business throughout New York state,” he wrote.

The decision occurred seven months after the republican return to the White House. A net panel divided from five judges from the New York intermediate level call division could not agree on many questions raised in Trump’s call, but a majority said that the monetary sentence was “excessive”.

After discovering that Trump blatantly repaying the financial statements that went to lenders and insurers, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered him last year to pay $ 355 million in penalties. With interest, the sum exceeded $ 515 million. Additional sanctions have been deducted from certain other leaders of the Trump organization, including the sons of Trump Eric and Donald Jr. – bring the total to $ 527 million, with interest.

An “excessive” fine

“While the injunctive reparation ordered by the court is well designed to limit the corporate culture of the defendants, the court degorgement order, which orders that the defendants pay almost half a billion dollars in New York State, is an excessive fine that violates the eighth amendment to the United States Constitution,” the judges of the short of the calls.

The other Engoron sanctions, confirmed by the Court of Appeal, were on break during Trump’s call, and the president was able to retain the collection of money by posting a deposit of $ 175 million.

The court, which separated from the bottom of the trial and the conclusion of the fraud of Engoron, rejected the sentence in its entirety while leaving a course for an appeal to the highest court of the State, the Court of Appeal. Trump and his co-accused, have written the judges, can seek to prolong the break on all the sanctions that take effect.

The panel was strongly divided, emitting 323 pages of competing and dissident opinions without majority. On the contrary, some judges approved parties of the conclusions of their colleagues while denouncing others, allowing the court to govern.

Two judges wrote that they felt that the Prosecutor of New York, the Attorney General of Letitia James, against Trump and his societies was justifiable and that she had proven her case but the penalty was too severe. One of them wrote that James exceeded his legal authority to bring the costume, saying that if one of Trump’s lenders felt wrong, they could have pursued him themselves, and none had done it. A judge wrote that Goron made an error in decision before the start of the trial that the Attorney General had proved that Trump had been engaged in fraud.

In his part of the decision, judge David Friedman, who was appointed to court by the Republican Governor George Pataki, was scathing in his criticism of James for having brought the trial.

“Clearly, his ultimate goal was not” market hygiene “… But political hygiene, ending with the derailment of President Trump’s political career and the destruction of his real estate activity,” wrote Friedman. “Voters have obviously made a verdict on his political career. This bench unanimously derails the effort to destroy his business.”

The Court of Appeal, the appeal division of the Court of First Instance of the State, took a unusually long time to govern, weighing Trump’s appeal for almost 11 months after the oral arguments last fall. Normally, calls are decided in a few weeks or months.

James said Trump has embarked on “Lying, cheating and amazing fraud”. His office had no immediate comments after Thursday’s decision.

Reventions of politics at stake

Trump and his co-accused denied reprehensible acts. In a way of six minutes after a trial of several months, Trump proclaimed in January 2024 that he was “an innocent man” and the case was “fraud on me”. The Republican has repeatedly maintained the case and the verdict was political measures of James and Engoron, the two Democrats.

Trump’s Ministry of Justice has assigned James for the files related to the trial, among other documents, as part of an investigation to know if it has violated the president’s civil rights. James’ personal lawyer, Abbe D. Lowell said that the investigation into the fraud case is “the most blatant and desperate example of this administration putting the president’s political remuneration campaign”.

Trump and his lawyers said his financial statements were not misleading because they came with warnings, noting that they were not audited. The defense also noted that bankers and insurers independently assessed the figures and loans have been reimbursed.

Despite deviations such as the three -time size of his Pentuse Trump Tower, he said that the financial statements were, if anything, lowball estimates in his fortune.

During a court of appeal hearing last September, Trump lawyers argued that many allegations of the case were too old and that James had abused a consumer protection law to continue Trump on private commercial transactions which were satisfactory for those involved.

State prosecutors said that if Trump insists that no one was injured by the financial statements, his exaggerations led the lenders to make more risky loans and that honest borrowers lose when others play their number of net values.

Legal obstacles

The civil fraud affair was only one of the many legal obstacles for Trump as he campaigned, won and was reduced to a second term as president.

On January 10, he was sentenced in his criminal case of silence to what is called unconditional release, leaving his conviction in books but savings, probation, a fine or another sanction. He calls on conviction.

And in December, a federal court of appeal confirmed a conclusion from a jury that Trump sexually abused the writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid -1990s and then defamed him, affirming a judgment of $ 5 million against him. The Court of Appeal refused in June to reconsider. Trump can always try to bring the Supreme Court to hear his call.

Trump also uses a subsequent verdict which forces him to pay $ 83.3 million in Carroll for additional defamation complaints.