Trump civil fraud case: Judge fines Trump $354 million, says frauds 'shock the conscience'

The former president was found to have defrauded lenders.

Former President Donald Trump has been fined $354.8 million plus approximately $100 million in interest in a civil fraud lawsuit that could alter the personal fortune and real estate empire that helped propel him to the White House. In the decision, Judge Arthur Engoron excoriated Trump, saying the president's credibility was "severely compromised," that the frauds "shock the conscience" and that Trump and his co-defendants showed a "complete lack of contrition and remorse" that he said "borders on pathological."

Engoron also hit Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump with $4 million fines and barred all three from helming New York companies for years. New York Attorney General Letitia James accused Trump and his adult sons of engaging in a decade-long scheme in which they used "numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation" to inflate Trump's net worth in order get more favorable loan terms. The former president has denied all wrongdoing and has said he will appeal.


Summary of penalties

Donald Trump and his adult sons were hit with millions in fines in the civil fraud trial and barred for years from being officers in New York companies. The judge said the frauds "shock the conscience."

Donald Trump: $354 million fine + approx. $100 million in interest
+ barred for 3 years from serving as officer of NY company
Donald Trump Jr.: $4 million fine
+ barred for 2 years from serving as officer of NY company
Eric Trump: $4 million fine
+ barred for 2 years from serving as officer of NY company
Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg: $1 million fine
+ barred for 3 years from serving as officer of NY company
+ barred for life from financial management role in NY company
Former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney:
+ barred for 3 years from serving as officer of NY company
+ barred for life from financial management role in NY company


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Michael Cohen 'told the truth': Judge Engoron

On Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former lawyer and self-described "fixer," Judge Engoron wrote in his ruling that he found the star witness to be a credible witness despite having been convicted of perjury.

"His testimony was significantly compromised by his having pleaded guilty to perjury and by some seeming contradictions in what he said at trial," Engoron wrote. "However, carefully parsed, he testified that although Donald Trump did not expressly direct him to reverse engineer financial statements, he ordered him to do so indirectly, in his 'mob voice.'"

Engoron continued that although the "animosity between the witness and the defendant is palpable, providing Cohen with an incentive to lie, the Court found his testimony credible, based on the relaxed manner in which he testified, the general plausibility of his statements, and, most importantly, the way his testimony was corroborated by other trial evidence."

A "less-forgiving factfinder" might have come to a different conclusion and not believed "a single word of a convicted perjurer," Engoron wrote.

"This factfinder does not believe that pleading guilty to perjury means that you can never tell the truth," he continued. "Michael Cohen told the truth."

Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to lying to Congress about the Russia probe, addressed the passage on social media, writing on X, "Judge Engoron's determination regarding my veracity at the NYAG Trump civil fraud trial. Michael Cohen told the truth!"


Trump family reacts to ruling: 'Insane'

Members of the Trump family and their attorneys roundly called the ruling unjust and indicated they plan to appeal.

Eric Trump told ABC News the judgment against him and his family is "a total joke" and "insane." He said the family will immediately appeal the ruling, which he said shows the court and the attorney general in his opinion are "living in an alternate universe."

Donald Trump Jr. accused the case of being politically motivated.

"We've reached the point where your political beliefs combined with what venue your case is heard are the primary determinants of the outcome; not the facts of the case!" he said in a statement to ABC News.

Donald Trump's lawyer, Chris Kise, also claimed the case was an "unjust political crusade" against the leading Republican presidential candidate and that there was no evidence of fraud.

"Hard to imagine a more unfair process and hard to believe this is happening in America," Kise said, adding that the former president "will of course appeal."

Donald Trump's legal spokesperson, Alina Habba, called the verdict a "manifest injustice" and the "culmination of a multi-year, politically fueled witch hunt."

"Countless hours of testimony proved that there was no wrongdoing, no crime, and no victim," Habba said in a statement. "Given the grave stakes, we trust that the Appellate Division will overturn this egregious verdict and end this relentless persecution against my clients."

The Trump Organization also said the ruling was a "gross miscarriage of justice."

"Every member of the New York business community, no matter the industry, should be gravely concerned with this gross overreach and brazen attempt by the Attorney General to exert limitless power where no private or public harm has been established," a spokesperson said in a statement. "If allowed to stand, this ruling will only further expedite the continuing exodus of companies from New York."



Judge, in decision, says the buck stopped with Trump

Judge Engoron took direct aim at several of the Trumps' core defenses, including Trump's claim that real estate appraisal is imprecise and subjective, and that property valuations reflect nuances in the market that only sophisticated practitioners can understand.

Engoron called that argument a "great red herring in this case."

"True enough, as appraising is an art as well as a science," Engoron wrote. "However, the science part cannot be fraudulent. When two appraisals rely on starkly different assumptions, that is not evidence of a difference of opinion, that is evidence of deceit."

Engoron also undercut a common refrain from defendants' that their accountants were responsible for maintaining above-board business practices.

In a section of his ruling titled, "Blame the Accountants," Engoron wrote that, "There is overwhelming evidence … that the buck for being truthful in the supporting data valuations stopped with the Trump Organization, not the accountants."


Bank relied on Trump's financial statement to secure loan

Deutsche Bank relied on the strength of Donald Trump's "financial profile" when deciding to loan the former president roughly $125 million related to the purchase of the Trump National Doral golf club in 2011, according to retired Deutsche Bank executive Nicholas Haigh.

Haigh testified that because Trump used the golf course and spa as collateral -- relatively "unusual" assets that Deutsche Bank would struggle to sell in the event of a foreclosure -- the bank leaned on the strength of Trump's larger portfolio.

"[Trump] is guaranteeing he will repay our loan -- all the money due on the loan," Haigh said about the terms of the loan. "He is also guaranteeing if the result is losing money, he will pay the cost of that shortfall."

Haigh said that he personally reviewed Trump's statement of financial condition when determining whether to sign off on the loan.

"My conclusion was the client owned a lot of real estate, which was not surprising," Haigh said about his findings after reading Trump's financial statement.

Previous witnesses in the trial have offered insights into how Trump's annual financial statement was drafted, finalized, and provided to banks to fulfill loan obligations. Haigh is the first witness to testify from the perspective of the banks, which considered the statements when deciding whether to do business with Trump.