AG Letitia James Now Demands $370M From Trump in Penalties for ‘Ill Gotten Gains’ in NY Fraud Trial

Upping the ante against former president Donald Trump, New York Attorney General Letitia James is now requesting that his Manhattan fraud judge fine the former president $370 million for a ten-year habit of lying to banks and other parties about his net worth. The suggested amount takes into account new proof of 'ill-gotten gains' discovered since James filed her initial case in September 2022, seeking $250 million. If the trial judge, Justice Arthur Engoron of the New York Supreme Court, accepts the AG's estimate, Trump would be required to repay not only the $370 million but also be barred from conducting business in New York, per Forbes.

The court documents that ask for these damages, filed on January 5, state that Trump and his co-defendants 'reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains.' The attorney general wrote, “The myriad deceptive schemes they employed to inflate asset values and conceal facts were so outrageous that they belie innocent explanation.”

James also claimed that Trump had a 'financial motive to defraud' as the Trump Organization's owner. The attorneys cited Trump's testimony, claiming it was untrustworthy since he claimed to “know more about real estate than other people.” The Attorney General further stated that this made it 'implausible he lacked peculiar knowledge of his own assets,' per CNN.

The new calculation, which James based on evidence that has surfaced throughout the case, divided the damages into three categories: money that Trump received from interest rate savings from misrepresenting his assets, profit from two deals that James claims were obtained fraudulently, and 'bonuses' given to Trump Organization employees who took part in the scheme. The two transactions resulted in a profit of $139 million from the sale of Washington's Old Post Office and $60 million from the sale of New York City's Ferry Point Golf Course.

In their briefs, Trump's attorneys argued on January 5 that Engoron should reject the allegations made against Trump. The majority of the transactions included in the AG's complaint were past the statute of limitations, Trump had not made any material misstatements in his financial condition statements, and the attorney general had not shown any evidence of a real-world impact, the filings state. 

“There is no evidence in the record that the terms or pricing of any of the subject loans would have been different based on the purported misstatements alleged by Plaintiff,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “Not a single witness from any bank (or anywhere else) testified to this at trial.”

Michael Cohen, the AG's star witness whose testimony from 2019 prompted her to take this case on, was the only witness to have been called to prove intent. Trump's lawyers opine that his testimony should be disregarded. “Cohen’s uncorroborated testimony that President Trump ‘speaks like a mob boss’ and ‘tells you what he wants without specifically telling you’ does not support a finding of conspiracy.”