Fraud or real estate? Five takeaways from week one of the Trump Organization trial | Donald Trump

Fraud or real estate? Five takeaways from week one of the Trump Organization trial | Donald Trump

The trial of Donald Trump and his real estate business kicked off this week in Manhattan as the former president faces a potential fine of at least $250m for financial fraud.

In his pre-trial ruling, the New York judge Arthur Engoron found Trump guilty of fraud for creating false and misleading financial statements. Trump boosted the value of his assets by as much as $2.2bn, according to an investigation by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who brought the case against Trump.

Engoron had already dealt a heavy blow to Trump, cancelling the business licenses that allow him to run his business in the state.

The first week of the trial had a full cast of characters, including appearances by Trump himself, who railed against proceedings outside of the courtroom but remained largely muted as they took place inside.

Because this is a civil case, Trump will not be

Real estate insiders question how Trump fraud judge valued Mar-a-Lago

Real estate insiders question how Trump fraud judge valued Mar-a-Lago


New York
CNN Business
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A New York judge ruled last week that former President Donald Trump inflated the value of his Mar-a-Lago estate by an eye-popping 2,300%.

That finding, part of shocking ruling that found Trump and his adult sons liable for fraud, was just one of multiple examples in which Judge Arthur Engoron found the Trump real estate empire to have been grossly inflated in value.

But the Mar-a-Lago finding in particular is raising eyebrows among real estate and legal experts because of the metric Judge Engoron relied on: the county tax assessor’s appraisal value.

“From 2011-2021, the Palm Beach County Assessor appraised the market value of Mar-a-Lago at between $18 million and $27.6 million,” Engoron wrote in his ruling.

The judge noted Trump valued Mar-a-Lago at between $426.5 million and $612 million, “an overvaluation of at least 2,300%, compared to the assessor’s appraisal.”

But it’s widely

Biden mocks ‘great real estate’ developer Trump who ‘didn’t build a damn thing’ at Labor Day rally in Pa.

Biden mocks ‘great real estate’ developer Trump who ‘didn’t build a damn thing’ at Labor Day rally in Pa.

President Biden on Monday mocked former commander-in-chief Donald Trump as a “great real estate” developer who “didn’t build a damn thing.”

Biden ripped Trump — the head of a New York City real estate dynasty and architect of the country’s controversial border wall with Mexico — while touting himself as the US’s infrastructure king.

“Guess what? The great real estate builder, the last guy here, he didn’t build a damn thing,” the 80-year-old president said during a Labor Day rally in swing state Pennsylvania.

“Under my predecessor, ‘Infrastructure Week’ became a punch line,” Biden said, referring to the dayslong Trump initiative in which his administration touted its national development plans.

“On my watch, infrastructure means a decade, and it’s a headline,” the president said, adding that $10 billion was committed to Pennsylvania so far from the federal government’s 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.

President Biden ripped former President Donald Trump while