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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.
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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