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On a day when he seems poised for victories in Republican primaries across the country, Donald Trump suffered another legal setback in a ruling by a New York State appeals court that the state’s attorney general could move forward with a lawsuit seeking $40 million in damages against the businessman for allegedly defrauding students at his now defunct Trump University.The unanimous ruling by a four-judge panel essentially handed the state’s Democratic attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, a new weapon to pursue Trump in the state’s courts even while the businessman runs for president. After being tied up in legal battles with Trump’s lawyers since 2013, Schneiderman got a green light from the judges to pursue his efforts to recover tuition and other payments made by students to Trump’s school going back six years. Trump’s lawyers had sought to limit their liability to three years. At the same time, the ruling limits efforts by Trump’s lawyers to depose all the students who attended courses there — a move that Schneiderman had argued could bog the case down.“Today’s decision is a clear victory in our effort to hold Donald Trump and Trump University accountable for defrauding thousands of students,” Schneiderman said in a statement that described the shuttered school as a “sham for-profit college.”It means, he added, “our entire fraud case can move forward, and confirms that the case is subject to a six-year statute of limitations. As the state’s chief law enforcement officer, my job is to see that perpetrators of fraud are brought to justice.”“Of course, we think it’s wrong,” Alan Garten, Trump’s chief lawyer, told Yahoo News Tuesday about the judicial ruling. “So we’re going to pursue an appeal.”The ruling was especially inopportune for Trump given that, in the last few days, as Trump University has turned into a campaign issue, the Republican frontrunner had dismissed the New York attorney general’s lawsuit as essentially over. “That case has been largely won, although they’re appealing,” Trump said on “Meet the Press” Sunday about the Schneiderman lawsuit. “But that case has been largely won by me.”
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Topic: NY court reinstates fraud case Trump said was ‘largely won’ (Read 204 times)
