Trump Organization controller to resume testimony
Former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney, a defendant in the case, is scheduled to return to the witness stand this morning for a half-day session of court.
State attorneys are expected to continue to probe the Trump Organization's internal procedures that resulted in the inflated values on Trump's financial statements, including how the former president's own Trump Tower penthouse grew in listed value from $80 million in 2011 to $327 million in 2016.
Judge Arthur Engoron already ruled last week that Trump overvalued the apartment by over $200 million based on the "false and misleading" claim that the residence was 30,000 square feet, rather than its actual size of 10,996 square feet.
![PHOTO: Jeffrey McConney, controller for the Trump Organization, center, arrives at the New York State Supreme Court in New York, Oct. 5, 2023.](https://i.abcnewsfe.com/a/e3a6d5c9-09b4-48af-9137-aa78f72cdfd3/mcconney-trump-gty-ps-231006_1696597571582_hpMain.jpg)
When McConney asked Kathy Kaye, a Trump International Realty executive, for assistance valuing the residence in 2013, Kaye cited the penthouse's ties to "celebrity" and its uniqueness as partial reasons to add $20 million to the apartment's listed value, according to an email that was entered into evidence.
"I don't see how one would list below 8K per sq foot at this point, which brings us to 240,000M ... 200,000M is a safe estimate," Kaye wrote in the email.
McConney also appeared to struggled to explain why he used asking prices, rather than the accepted practice of using sale prices, when valuing the penthouse.
The exchange prompted New York AG special counsel Andrew Amer to confront McConney with his testimony during a previous investigative interview, in which McConney said asking prices were a poor measure of value since "you can ask anything you want to."