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Trump ordered to pay $355 million in penalties in New York Fraud case. He's also banned from operating any business in New York for three years, the Trump Organization is banned from borrowing money from any financial institution registered in New York for three years, and Eric and Don Jr each get their own $4 million dollar fines, and the former CFO Alan Wiesselberg owes a million. However the court also reverses its earlier ruling to cancel defendant's business certificates (aka the "corporate death penalty"). Instead an Independent Monitor will continue at the Trump Organisation for three years to ensure that it meets its financial reporting obligations.
All the penalties come with interest, so the defendants collectively owe around $450 million, not counting the $80+ million owed to E Jean Carroll. Even for Trump, that's serious money. Trump has of course said he will appeal, but to do so he will need to put up the full amount in bond first, and it's not clear he has the liquidity to do that - and as mentioned above he's now limited in his ability to borrow. And even if he manages to get the cash together, it doesn't seem to me that his prospects on appeal are at all good. Higher courts typically defer to the trial court's fact-finding, and Judge Engoron is not kind in his assessment of the credibility of Trump and his witnesses.
This case is so bad it’s the exact thing I talked about with ymeskhout about that what he was complaining about the right grifters can get away with anything because the vibes are institutional corruption. And this is worse it’s not some dude making a movie but a court of law in one of the richest states in the union.
No one else has ever been prosecuted for this. It’s like giving a guy a $400 million bill because he jaywalked.
Where do you get the idea that nobody has ever been prosecuted for this? A recent AP article suggests that there have been nearly 150 actions under the law since it was passed in 1956.
Did you read the article?
“AP’s review of nearly 150 reported cases since New York’s “repeated fraud” statute was passed in 1956 showed that nearly every previous time a company was taken away, victims and losses were key factors. Customers had lost money or bought defective products or never received services ordered, leaving them cheated and angry.“
A very key point “customers” so these were frauds targeting retail people where real losses occurred not institutional investors like banks especially ones who did not lose money.
Ignoring actual debating “fraud” as there is no other similar case that has ever been prosecuted under this statute which even the AP admits is true.
So yes this has never been done before.
They didn't take the company away; they levied a fine. It's a large fine, but dissolving the company would have involved appointing a receiver and liquidating all of the company's assets.
There is no functional difference between taking a company and liquidating and just taking 450 million of their money as fine.
But I will repeat show me one similar case prosecuted this way. (They’ve never been prosecuted).
There are obviously many companies that could weather a $450m fine.
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Is the reason this case so bad based on the fact that the charges have never been pursued before, or is there also an affirmative defense of the alleged fraud?
The gap between “never been pursued before” and this is the worst thing in the world and punishable by “350 million fine” is absurdly large.
Affirmative sure. There’s a great deal of estimation being done in these deals.
For the securities industry Elon Musks “420 tweet” is considered a bigger deal. Because it targets retail investors versus institutions.
We still have a lot of 2020-2021 market fraud that hasn’t been prosecuted. The whole AMC/GME pump and dump violated a ton of securities law and lost retail investors a lot of money.
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Are you claiming that he didn't do anything illegal, or that these laws are rarely enforced?
Because, yeah, I agree that rich people in the US get to break the law all teh time with very little chance of consequences. I don't think that's good, and I don't have a lot of sympathy for the one rich lawbreaker they decide to make an example of.
[disclaimer: I'm not familiar with the merits]
If they're going to make an example of someone, it would be significantly more effective of an example if it can't just be passed off as a political prosecution, as then people would worry it could happen to them and reform their behavior, rather than just make themselves politically unobtrusive.
I agree that it does less to discourage criminals than prosecuting someone solely for being a criminal would.
However, it probably much more effectively discourages criminals from entering politics, which is a good thing.
It probably much more effectively discourages criminals from entering politics on the wrong side, which isn’t quite the same thing.
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Do we have examples of similar prosecutions for similar crimes?
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The problem is you run into the conservative desire to believe in the institutions. There's no way the Democrats could have so blatantly used the court system to engage in political persecution of their opponents. The System wouldn't stand for such a thing. Since it did stand for it, Trump must therefore simply be guilty as his opponents claim, and damn the appearances otherwise.
Sarcasm?
Vantablack pilled
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the smarter grifters keep it civil and then use asset protection to avoid having to pay anything . the line between civil and criminal is up to the DA to decide. it can be referred for criminal prosecution.
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