Judge rules Trump committed fraud in building real estate empire

[LMAO]

There’s a lot of previous stiffed contractors that are doing a happy dance in the privacy of their own home right now

[deb]

There’s a lot of previous stiffed contractors that are doing a happy dance in the privacy of their own home right now

Yep. He was doing that back when he was a flaming liberal.

[Kamaji]

Well, that's it then. Trump is obviously going to prison. @Kamaji has decreed it so.
Time to Party! Beelzebub and his Satanic brood is finally going down!! We got that SOB at last!
Party is at Kamaji's house ...

Why would Trump be going to prison?  This case is a civil case, the consequences of which are civil, not criminal.  Get ahold of yourself.

[Kamaji]

There’s a lot of previous stiffed contractors that are doing a happy dance in the privacy of their own home right now

Most likely.

[LMAO]

Yep. He was doing that back when he was a flaming liberal.

Well, the reason that he was shorting contractors was because the “Dims and RINOs” were giving him bad advice

[LMAO]

I don’t deny that there’s a political motivation behind many of these people who are charging Donald Trump.

But Donald Trump also gives them Ammunition. And when somebody is not only able to cite the statute that’s being applied here, but is as able to cite examples of where it has been used, it gets harder to argue that Donald Trump is simply a victim of political lawfare and a “vast left wing conspiracy”

[LadyLiberty]

Trump has a long history of inflating his net worth.  I recall reading during the 2016 election that he would overvalue his properties to determine his net wealth, then fight the tax authorities saying they were worth much less to get his tax bills down. But did the lenders really take his word, or did they do their due diligence before lending him money?

Journalist Tim O’Brien, who reignited the speculation about Trump’s true net worth with his 2005 book Trump Nation: The Art of Being the Donald, recorded this hilarious anecdote about a meeting with Trump in the New York Times that year:

“I would say six [billion]. Five to six. Five to six,” he said.

Hmm. The previous August he told me that his net worth was $4 billion to $5 billion. Then, later that same day that August, he said his casino holdings represented 2 percent of his wealth, which at the time gave him a net worth of about $1.7 billion. In the same day, Donald’s own estimates of his wealth differed by as much as $3.3 billion. How could that happen? Was Donald living in his own private zone of wildly escalating daily inflation, a Trump Bolivia? And his $1.7 billion figure in August was well below the $2.6 billion that Forbes would credit him when it published its rich list just a couple of months later.

Now Donald was saying he was worth $5 billion to $6 billion.

“Five to six. Five to six.”

And on the nightstand in my bedroom at Donald’s Palm Beach club, Mar-a-Lago, was a glossy brochure that said he was worth $9.5 billion.

LOL.

That same year, Deutsche Bank did an independent evaluation of Trump’s net worth before giving him a $640 million loan to build condos in Chicago, the Wall Street Journal reports. They determined he was worth $788 million.

Trump’s Greatest, Most Luxurious Estimate: $4-5 billion and $5-6 billion and $9.5 billion
Estimate From the Haters and Losers: $788 million.

More examples:  https://www.gawker.com/donald-trumps-grossly-exaggerated-net-worth-a-timeline-1711718182

Let's face it, the man lies like he breathes.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

I don’t deny that there’s a political motivation behind many of these people who are charging Donald Trump.

But Donald Trump also gives them Ammunition. And when somebody is not only able to cite the statute that’s being applied here, but is as able to cite examples of where it has been used, it gets harder to argue that Donald Trump is simply a victim of political lawfare and a “vast left wing conspiracy”

Trump always muddies the waters, so it makes hard for his persecution complex to be completely justified.

[Hoodat]

Trump has a long history of inflating his net worth.  I recall reading during the 2016 election that he would overvalue his properties to determine his net wealth, then fight the tax authorities saying they were worth much less to get his tax bills down.

In that event, there was no benefit in overvaluing his property since it would create a higher tax burden.  Not at all conducive to fraud.

But did the lenders really take his word, or did they do their due diligence before lending him money?

Of course they did their due diligence.  No one is going to lend money on property without an appraisal.  Which is why it is remarkable that the Trump defense did not submit such an appraisal from Deutsche Bank, nor contest that the prosecution lacked an appraisal themselves.  Needless to say, no one from Deutsche Bank is complaining about the terms of the loan.  Trump paid it back on time with tens of millions of dollars in interest.  So clearly, they saw it as a solid business transaction.

[Smokin Joe]

The statute in question does not require that.  Read.  The.  Opinion.

This is not some fly-by-night, "creative" interpretation of a statute that has never been used against anyone else.  This statute has seen a fair bit of use against the likes of General Electric and Dominos Pizza, and it does not require that anyone have been defrauded.  It is like a speed limit or the laws against deceptive advertising - the violation happens if one speeds or engages in deceptive advertising, whether or not anyone was injured by one's speeding, or by one's deceptive advertising.

How about siccing that mofo on certain wireless providers touting "free phones' that come with three years of bondage? That BS has been going on for a long time. (no, I did not get bit by that crap, just changed providers again). I just hate being lied to, and it's so common I assume that is the case any more.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Let's put the    being reported on a trial by jury to rest ....

Former President Donald Trump’s team pushed back Tuesday on claims frommultiple media outlets that Trump’s legal team forgot to check a box to request a jury trial in New York, saying the state attorney general filed the case under a statute that does not offer the option of a jury trial.

Multiple outlets, reporters and left-leaning legal analysts repeatedly claimed that Trump lawyer Alina Habba forgot to check a box, thereby robbing her boss of the opportunity to present his case to a jury. In a statement to the Daily Caller, a Trump spokesperson rejected that narrative.

“The Attorney General filed this case under a consumer protection statute that denies the right to a jury. There was never an option to choose a jury trial. It is unfortunate that a jury won’t be able to hear how absurd the merits of this case are and conclude no wrongdoing ever happened,” the Trump spokesperson told the Caller.

"I have to address this one common misconception in the press, and unfortunately it just keeps getting repeated, which is that we had this great option to have a box checked for a jury. No, we didn’t have that. That’s not how this works. They brought it under Section 63(12), which is a very narrow, not appropriately used section of the law, which is for consumer protection,” Habba said in a Monday interview on Newsmax.


https://dailycaller.com/2023/10/03/donald-trump-new-york-jury-trial-alina-habba/

[Kamaji]

Reading some of the prior cases under Exec. Law § 63(12) indicates to me that Trump is in serious hot water with that claim by the NY AG.

Here is a quote from a 1974 case against a company that was accused of running a pyramid scheme for selling "dealerships" to sign up advertisers for a coupon and advert book:

Deliberately vague and misleading statements made to prospects to induce them to listen to a sales pitch have been condemned by this court (see Matter of Lefkowitz v. E.F.G. Baby Prods. Co., 40 A.D.2d 364, 368) and others as creating an atmosphere conducive to fraud, if not fraudulent in and of themselves ( Matter of People v. Compact Assoc., 22 A.D.2d 129, 131, affd. 17 N.Y.2d 758). The operating manual urges dealers not to go into details in contacting prospects but to "Use the Curiosity Approach * * * tell him you have seen a money tree and would like for him to take a look at it. Use the Advice Approach. * * * Tell your guest that you have seen the most fantastic opportunity of your lifetime and you would like him to attend a meeting with you and give you his personal opinion. This is an effective method for women approaching men, employees approaching employers, and young men approaching older men." Obviously since the dealers are already part of Bull, they would not be seeking advice at all but, with respondents' coaching, would be misleading prospects and using false pretenses to lure them to the "opportunity meeting." (See Executive Law, § 63, subd. 12; Matter of Lefkowitz v. E.F.G. Baby Prods. Co., supra.) Such conduct is prima facie fraudulent.

Trump's misvaluations of his various properties - even setting Mar-a-Lago to one side - were certainly misleading statements made to others to induce them to do something Trump wanted them to do.

Furthermore, this language more or less describes Trump's favorite selling device of "truthful hyperbole" which plays on the listener's desires and curiosity without giving them concise, truthful, information.

This is a rather broad statute - and whether it should be narrowed is a matter of policy discussion to be taken up with the NY legislature - however, it does seem to apply in Trump's case.

So, the fact that the NY AG is going after Trump may be politically motivated, but there is almost certainly sufficient underlying conduct to justify the bringing of the case, notwithstanding the motivation for bringing the case.

I wait to see if the NY Court of Appeals will correct me.

[catfish1957]

You all know I am no Trump fan, but to convict someone  basically on an appraisal really is some precedent setting legal opinions.

And honestly, if Trump was trying to circumvent and defraud the local governments, wouldn't he want a low-balled property valuation to pay less ad-valorem taxes?

[cato potatoe]

I don’t deny that there’s a political motivation behind many of these people who are charging Donald Trump.

But Donald Trump also gives them Ammunition. And when somebody is not only able to cite the statute that’s being applied here, but is as able to cite examples of where it has been used, it gets harder to argue that Donald Trump is simply a victim of political lawfare and a “vast left wing conspiracy”

He's a victim of his own disrespect for attorneys.  Any high profile republican will be targeted in today's environment, and Donald has no effective way of defending himself.  He once said he keeps whining until he wins.  Well that isn't going to work this time ... the democrats are out for blood.

[Kamaji]

You all know I am no Trump fan, but to convict someone  basically on an appraisal really is some precedent setting legal opinions.

And honestly, if Trump was trying to circumvent and defraud the local governments, wouldn't he want a low-balled property valuation to pay less ad-valorem taxes?

Except that (a) it's not a "conviction", it's a determination of civil liability, and (b) it isn't dependent solely on the Mar-a-Lago issue; even if Mar-a-Lago were simply not part of the case, there is solid evidence that Trump knowingly lied about the valuations of his other properties, repeatedly, and in defiance of actual third-party valuation reports he received.

Mar-a-Lago is just the shiny bit of tinsel the con-artist is trying to use to distract everyone else from what's actually going on.

[Kamaji]

How about siccing that mofo on certain wireless providers touting "free phones' that come with three years of bondage? That BS has been going on for a long time. (no, I did not get bit by that crap, just changed providers again). I just hate being lied to, and it's so common I assume that is the case any more.

It could very well apply if the language in the agreement wasn't clear enough.  Here is a list of all the different cases that have cited Exec. Law 63(12):  https://law.justia.com/lawsearch?query=Executive%20Law%20%C2%A7%2063%2812%29

There are a lot of them, and most of them involve consumer products, like dishwashers (GE) and whatnot.