The attorney general of New York State made the statement on Friday as she continued to prepare for trial in her civil action against the former American president and his family company. She said that Donald Trump may have illegally increased his wealth by a far greater amount than was previously believed.
Attorney General Letitia James said that according to her valuation and accounting experts, Trump inflated his net worth by between $1.9 billion and $3.6 billion annually over a ten-year period in a petition in a New York state court in Manhattan.
This estimate is greater than the $812 million to $2.23 billion range she provided last week based on what she termed “undisputed” data, which Trump denies.
In order to get better conditions on loans and insurance, James said that a “mountain of evidence” demonstrates how Trump and his colleagues misled about their assets and net worth. This justifies a decision that Trump’s financial statements were false even before the Oct. 2 trial.
In addition to demanding a $250 million punishment, the attorney general seeks to prevent Trump and his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump from running their family firm, the Trump Organization, which is situated in New York City. Trump’s legal team responded six minutes after James’ submission, arguing that the lawsuit should be dismissed in its entirety.
According to them, Trump is “unquestionably worth many billions of dollars,” and he has even generated “substantial sums of money” for the businesses that funded and insured the real estate holdings that make up his “phenomenal corporate empire.”
No fraud occurred. There are no victims, the attorneys said.
The majority of James’ allegations are barred by statutes of limitations, according to Trump’s attorneys, who also said that James “maligned, denigrated, and libeled President Trump and his entire family via an opportunistic lawsuit filed for political gain.” While Trump has a commanding lead in the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, James is a Democrat.
The requests for summary judgment from both parties will be heard on September 22 by Judge Arthur Engoron. His decisions may limit the case or, if Trump wins, might make a trial unnecessary, which might go on until just before Christmas.
The lawsuit is different from the four criminal charges that Trump is facing, including two for seeking to rescind his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. In each of the four criminal proceedings, Trump has pled not guilty. In his case, James questions how Trump appraised a number of his assets, including his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida and his triple penthouse atop Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan.
James said that Trump may have increased his net worth by $3.5 billion to $3.6 billion year from 2014 to 2019, the final three of which were spent in the White House, citing the opinions of her experts.
According to his financial disclosures, Trump’s net worth reached its highest in 2015, 2018, and 2019, according to James. Engoron denied Trump’s request to postpone the trial until after he made a decision on the requests for summary judgment on Wednesday.
The civil lawsuit in New York is New York v. Trump et al, New York County, New York State Supreme Court, No. 452564/2022.
