Trump to Pay $364 Million in Penalty for Financial Fraud

February 17, 2024 Hour: 12:08 pm

The former president Donald Trump, will pay a penalty of more than 350 million dollars for to dupe banks and others with financial statements that inflated the former president’s wealth of his family business, the Trump Organization, a judge in New York ruled on Friday.

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“Frauds found here jump off the page and shock the conscience,” wrote Judge Arthur Engoron in his decision, who banned Trump and two other executives from serving as officials or directors of any corporation or entity in New York for three years.

Engoron also said Trump rarely responded to questions asked and often intervened in long, irrelevant speeches on issues that went far beyond the scope of the trial. Its refusal to answer questions directly, or in some cases to respond, seriously compromised its credibility.

Former US president Donald Trump ordered to pay nearly $355 million penalty in civil fraud case pic.twitter.com/ia3s2v7Qqy

— The Times Of India (@timesofindia)
February 17, 2024

On the other hand, Trump’s lawyer’s team vowed to appeal the judge’s desition. His lawywer Alina Habba who have represented the former president in some of his most personally contradictory cases, called the desition a “manifest injustice” and “the culmination of a multi-year, politically fueled witch hunt.”

But Engoron highlighted that “the facts and experts of the defendants simply denied the reality, and the defendants did not accept responsibility or imposed internal controls to prevent future recurrences,” adding that the “total lack of contrition and remorse of the defendants borders on the pathological”.

In his social media Trump attacked and Trump refused to back down, called the judge Arthur F. Engoron a “corrupt” and says New York is going “bust” after he was ordered to pay $350+ million. “We have a corrupt judge. He’s not a respected man… We’ve employed tens of thousands of people in New York and we paid taxes like few other people have ever paid in New York,” said the Republican candidate.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has been investigating Trump’s business since 2019. James praised the ruling as a “great victory”. “No matter how great, rich, or powerful you are, no one is above the law. Not even Donald Trump,” she said.