Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron ordered in February former President Donald Trump to pay an approximate $450 million penalty in a civil fraud case in which there were no victims. Now, a New York appellate court is raising questions regarding the “troubling” penalty and Attorney General Letitia James’ justification for bringing the case in the first place.
James accused Trump of inflating his personal wealth to get better loan terms. Trump, for example, valued his Mar-a-Lago estate at between $427 million and $612 million, Forbes reported. Engoron, however, cited a one-off local Palm Beach County appraiser who valued the property as low as $18 million. Some experts have reportedly valued the sprawling property in the hundreds of millions.
As my colleague Mark Hemingway explained earlier this year, “Trump took out loans over several years, as real estate moguls are wont to do. For him to get approved for those loans, the banks did their own due diligence about Trump’s finances and ability to pay back the loans and decided to give them to him. Trump paid back the loans, and everyone made money.”
Enogoron ultimately ordered Trump to pay $354 million plus an additional $100 million in interest. Trump posted a $175 million bond in April and appealed the ruling.
[READ NEXT: Judge Engoron’s Inflation Of Trump’s ‘Ill-Gotten Gains’ Is The Real Financial Fraud]
Trump’s team argued on Thursday before the New York Appellate Division, First Judicial Department that the case was a “clear-cut violation of the statute
