The trump trial according to Judge Engoron's ruling

[Tigbitties38]

Now that the dust has settled, maybe we can discuss the 92 page ruling.

Note. All quotes, numbers, come from the below link.

https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/file...p-decision.pdf

From the "Summary" section.
"The accountants created these “compilations” based on data submitted by the Trump entities. In order to borrow more and at lower rates, defendants submitted blatantly false financial data to the accountants, resulting in fraudulent financial statements. When confronted at trial with the statements, defendants’ fact and expert witnesses simply denied reality, and defendants failed to accept responsibility or to impose internal controls to prevent future recurrences."

First off, the trial covered 10 years of activities, The fine reflects that time frame. The fine reflects the amount of money (damages) generated by the fraud or the ill gotten gains (IGG).
If the IGG is a large number, the fine will be a large number. The claims the fine is excessive and will be reduced on appeal isn't a sure thing by any means. Over 10 years, the amount of IGG is very high. $355 mil is only excessive if it is more than the IGG realized.
In this case, IGGs are the damages. It doesn't matter that the banks were repaid.

From "The Trial" section.

"The eleven-week trial of this action addressed whether defendants are liable pursuant to the second through seventh causes of action and what monetary penalties and/or injunctive relief this Court should impose. Plaintiff is seeking “disgorgement” of “ill-gotten gains,” and to limit defendants’ abilities to conduct business in New York.

Constitutional provisions guaranteeing a jury trial, such as the Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution, apply only to cases “at common law,” so-called “legal” cases. The phrase “at common law” is used in contradistinction to cases that are “equitable” in nature. Whether a case is “legal” or “equitable” depends on the relief that plaintiff sought. Here, plaintiff seeks disgorgement and injunctions, each of which are forms of equitable relief. Thus, there was no right to a jury, and the case was “tried to the Court;” the Court being the sole factfinder and the sole “judge of credibility.”

Note: This footnote at bottom of page 6.
"3 In any event, neither party applied nor moved for a jury trial."


The fine was $355,000,000.

In this case, @127,000,000 of the fine comes from the profit on the sale of The Old Post Office.

@169,000,000 comes from $73,000,000 in saved interest on the Doral loan, $53,000,000 on The Old Post Office loan, @$17,000,000 on the trump Chicago loan, and @$24,000,000 on the 40 Wall Street loan for a total of @$169,000,000.

$60,000,000 in windfall profit from selling Ferry Point to Bally’s. Trump maintained the license agreement based on fraudulent financials and sold the license agreement to the Bally’s Corporation. Plus interest.

The mentioned loans had stipulations that trump had to maintain certain cash reserves and certain net worth figures. The fraud comes from trump inflating his net worth to receive favorable loan rates.

Example: "The Old Post Office guarantee explicitly stated that Trump’s representations were made “[i]n
order to induce Lender to accept this Guarant[ee] and to enter into the Loan Agreement and the
transactions thereunder,” and that loan obligations were “conclusively presumed to have been
created in reliance” on Trump’s guarantee and its representations. PX 305. This was confirmed
by the testimony of former and current Deutsche Bank employees Nicholas Haigh and David
Williams.
Pursuant to the personal guarantee, Donald Trump was required to “keep and maintain complete
and accurate books and records,” and to maintain $50 million in unencumbered liquidity and a
minimum net worth of $2.5 billion to be “tested and certified to on an annual basis based upon
the SFC delivered to Lender during each year.”

From page 76.

"In its summary judgment decision, this Court already found that the SFCs from 2014-2021 were false by material amounts as a matter of law. NYSCEF Doc. 1531 Indeed, materiality under this statute is judged not by reference to reliance by or materiality to a particular victim, but rather on whether the financial statement “properly reflected the financial condition” of the person to which the statement pertains. People v Essner, 124 Misc 2d 830, 835 (Sup Ct, NY County 1984) (“there need be no ‘victim,’ ergo, reliance is neither an element of the crime nor a valid yardstick with which to test the materiality of a false statement”).
Materiality has been one of the great red herrings of this case all along. Faced with clear evidence of a misstatement, a person can always shout that “it’s immaterial.” Absolute perfection, including with numbers, exists only in heaven. If fraud is insignificant, then, like most things in life, it just does not matter. As an ancient maxim has it, de minimis non curat lex,
the law is not concerned with trifles. Neither is this Court.

But that is not what we have here. Whether viewed in relative (percentage) or absolute (numerical) terms, objectively (the governing standard) or subjectively (how the lenders viewed them), defendants’ misstatements were material. United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously, or infamously, declared that he could not define pornography, but that he knew it when he saw it. Jacobellis v State of Ohio, 378 US 184, 197 (1964). The frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience.
Wisely, courts have refused to define “material” in a “one size fits all” fashion. At trial, this Court attempted to get the experts to go where Courts have dared not tread. Not surprisingly, a firm definition could not be found. But in the present context, this Court confidently declares that any number that is at least 10% off could be deemed “material,” and any number that is at least 50% off would likely be deemed material. These numbers are probably conservative given that here, such deviations from truth represent hundreds of millions of dollars, and in the case of Mar-a-Lago, possibly a billion dollars or more."

From page 66

"Mar-a-Lago

In 1995, Donald Trump signed a “Deed of Conservation and Preservation” in which he gave up the right to use Mar-a-Lago for any purpose other than as a social club (the “1995 Deed”). In 2002, Donald Trump granted a conservation easement to the National Trust for Historic Preservation and signed a deed in which, in addition to conveying the rights to develop or use Mar-a-Lago for any purpose other than a social club, the Deed further “limits changes to the Property including, without limitation, the division or subdivision of the Property for any purpose, including use as single family homes, the interior renovation of the mansion, which may be necessary and desirable for the sale of the property as a single family residential estate, the construction of new buildings and the obstruction of open vistas.” NYSCEF Doc. No. 1531
at 25-26 (emphasis added).


In exchange for executing the 2002 Deed, in which he gave away, in perpetuity, the right to develop or use the property as a single-family residence, Donald Trump paid significantly lower property taxes on Mar-a-Lago. PX 1730; TT 3533-3535.
McConney had in his possession, since at least 2011, a copy of the 2002 Deed, restricting the use of Mar-a-Lago as a single-family residence. TT 773-775; PX 1013; DX 360. McConney was also aware, when he prepared the SFCs supporting data, that the entire basis of the valuations of Mar-a-Lago rested on the premise that it could be sold as a private residence to an individual.
Each and every year, he valued Mar-a-Lago as if it could be sold as a single-family residence, notwithstanding the deeded prohibitions against such use in perpetuity. TT 759, 775.

Further, when Patrick Birney took over for McConney in preparing the valuations for the SFCs, Weisselberg and McConney both concealed from Birney the 1995 and 2002 deeds. TT 1258- 1259. When valuing Mar-a-Lago on the SFCs from 2016-2021, McConney and Weisselberg selected comparables for Birney to use that were exclusively for private residences. TT 1248- 1256, 1268-1282; see, e.g., PX 3026.
There is no legal gray area surrounding the permanent nature of the deed restrictions. PX 1013. Accordingly, there can be no mistake that Donald Trump’s valuation of Mar-a-Lago from 2011-
2021 was fraudulent."

And so it goes.
Several people claim they have read the entire ruling. Their arguments show they skimmed it at best. The "all the loans were repaid" and the "Mar-a-largo is worth a billion dollars" people need to reread and reevaluate (repeat as necessary) what they thought they read.
Counting on winning an appeal seems to me to be wishful thinking. Letting trump keep his IGGs is not an option either. He is a con man and shouldn't be rewarded.

[txdot-guy]

I’m not going to go into the specifics of the ruling because I would rather talk about the lying and the lack of accountability that people seem to be willing to accept.

Let’s harken back to the days of the 2007 mortgage meltdown and the world wide financial crisis. I remember those days well. The reasons why it occurred have been endlessly debated but the one thing that everyone can agree on is the high level of financial fraud that occurred up and down the mortgage market.

The mortgage borrowers lying on their applications, the appraiser’s lying on their behalf, mortgage brokers knowingly selling subprime mortgages to banks, rating agencies misclassifying the bonds. Fraud up and down, sometimes knowingly and sometimes mistakenly. All allowed to happen because state and federal regulators failed to do their jobs.

My question is this. How is what Trump did by lying on his financial statements any different? Lying is lying. When you do it to inflate your assets it is fraud. Arguing that no one got hurt doesn’t justify the act. Saying that everyone does it merely means that are regulators and enforcement agencies are not doing their jobs.

Trump doesn’t seem to understand that he did anything wrong and shows no interest in changing his behavior. If the State of New York wants to punish Trump both to adjust his behavior as well as to send a message to the rest of the business community that fudging on your paperwork will be prosecuted then I’m all for it.

[Jackie S]

Yet, the Loaning Institutions chose to lend him the money, they made money, he made money, everybody was happy.

Everybody but a vindictive prosecutor and an ultra liberal judge.

[Tigbitties38]

Not a very good summery.

You were partially right. Trump, very happily, made at least $355 million in IGG. You revel in your ability to disregard facts in the ruling.

You think the people (who followed the rules) were happy after trump illegally won bids by fraudulent means? The loans were made on the basis of fraudulent SFCs.

If not for his fraud, he would not have been qualified to receive the loan for the Old Post Office.

The ruling explains everything in detail. My post covered many relevant details.

Your uninformed post is opinion lacking factual support and ignores the rule of law.
You don't like the verdict. Like many of your pro-trump opinions, it's no surprise.

Originally Posted by Jackie S

Yet, the Loaning Institutions chose to lend him the money, they made money, he made money, everybody was happy.

Everybody but a vindictive prosecutor and an ultra liberal judge.

Both of the above are probably happy now.

[Yssup Rider]

Originally Posted by Jackie S

Yet, the Loaning Institutions chose to lend him the money, they made money, he made money, everybody was happy.

Everybody but a vindictive prosecutor and an ultra liberal judge.

Pity we all don’t have such problems…

Guess what, we do.

[Jackie S]

Originally Posted by Tigbitties38

Not a very good summery.

You were partially right. Trump, very happily, made at least $355 million in IGG. You revel in your ability to disregard facts in the ruling.

You think the people (who followed the rules) were happy after trump illegally won bids by fraudulent means? The loans were made on the basis of fraudulent SFCs.

If not for his fraud, he would not have been qualified to receive the loan for the Old Post Office.

The ruling explains everything in detail. My post covered many relevant details.

Your uninformed post is opinion lacking factual support and ignores the rule of law.
You don't like the verdict. Like many of your pro-trump opinions, it's no surprise.


Both of the above are probably happy now.

The details are a moot point.
As has been stated. Nobody is denying that Trump broke the law.
The complaint is with the sentence and penalty.

Latisha James will be severely chastised by the Supreme Court when they rule that she broke the law by denying Trump’s civil rights under the 8th Amendment.

What do we do when a Government Official denies a citizen of their Civil Rights.
Ask the Cop in the George Floyd case.

[txdot-guy]

Our economic systems require that the people and businesses involved tell the truth. The more fraud in the system the more likely it will have problems. There needs to be consequences for lying because it perverts the system. There is an absolute moral obligation for regulators to catch and punish those who violate both the spirit and law of the system.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by Tigbitties38

You think the people (who followed the rules) were happy after trump illegally won bids by fraudulent means? The loans were made on the basis of fraudulent SFCs.

....If not for his fraud, he would not have been qualified to receive the loan for the Old Post Office.

Not true. Deutsche Bank loaned Trump most of the money in question, including the loan for purchase of the Old Post Office. I've read press reports describing what Trump represented his net worth was in his statements of financial condition, and the amount by which Deutsche Bank wrote down those amounts. In three instances between about 2011 and 2020, Trump claimed a net worth in the range of $4 billion and $6 billion. Deutsche assumed he was worth $2.4 billion to $2.65 billion. Deutsche knew he was a liar. Anybody who followed his career knew he lied about his net worth. Furthermore, Deutsche had been burned around 2010 on a nonrecourse (collateral only) loan on Trump's Chicago property, and if those bankers were worth their salt, they made pretty damn sure they were going to be able to collect based on Trump's personal guarantee if the properties went belly up.

Originally Posted by txdot-guy

Let’s harken back to the days of the 2007 mortgage meltdown and the world wide financial crisis. I remember those days well. The reasons why it occurred have been endlessly debated but the one thing that everyone can agree on is the high level of financial fraud that occurred up and down the mortgage market.

The mortgage borrowers lying on their applications, the appraiser’s lying on their behalf, mortgage brokers knowingly selling subprime mortgages to banks, rating agencies misclassifying the bonds. Fraud up and down, sometimes knowingly and sometimes mistakenly. All allowed to happen because state and federal regulators failed to do their jobs.

My question is this. How is what Trump did by lying on his financial statements any different? Lying is lying. When you do it to inflate your assets it is fraud. Arguing that no one got hurt doesn’t justify the act. Saying that everyone does it merely means that are regulators and enforcement agencies are not doing their jobs.

Trump doesn’t seem to understand that he did anything wrong and shows no interest in changing his behavior. If the State of New York wants to punish Trump both to adjust his behavior as well as to send a message to the rest of the business community that fudging on your paperwork will be prosecuted then I’m all for it.

How many people who remained current on their mortgages were fined 20% of their net worth for lying on their applications?

You're describing attempted fraud, not fraud. See reply to Tigbitties in above. Nobody was defrauded. Yeah, what he did deserved a fine, maybe in the tens of millions. But $455 million? That's ridiculous. That was almost 20% of his net worth at the time, before the Trump Media merger, and a very large percentage of the total amount loaned by the banks.

That said, yes, using the definition of fraud in New York Executive Law 63(12), Trump committed fraud. You and I have too. Here it is,

The word “fraud” or “fraudulent” as used herein shall include any device, scheme or artifice to defraud and any deception, misrepresentation, concealment, suppression, false pretense, false promise or unconscionable contractual provisions.  

So you deceive, misrepresent, conceal, or suppress, then you commit fraud. That's a prosecutor's wet dream!

The irony is that this law has been used by the State of New York to defraud the very people who were injured. The fines don't go to Deutsche Bank. They go to the state. So if Letitia James had succeeded in bankrupting Trump, which she might have done by forcing him into a fire sale if the appellate judges hadn't intervened, Deutsche Bank might be the main victim, besides Trump. Yes, Deutsche Bank, the very party that was allegedly defrauded because it didn't receive the amount of interest income that the prosecution and Kangaroo Engoron deem it should have.

A better example is the action against Exxon brought under 63(12) by the state of New York. New York tried to extract money from Exxon for allegedly not informing shareholders of the risks of carbon emissions and global warming. If the New York AG had succeeded, the money would have gone into the pocket of the state. And who would have essentially paid the fine? The shareholders of Exxon, the same people (and institutions) who allegedly were defrauded. The Supreme Court of New York found in favor of Exxon.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by Tigbitties38

Now that the dust has settled, maybe we can discuss the 92 page ruling.

Note. All quotes, numbers, come from the below link.

https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/file...p-decision.pdf

From the "Summary" section.
"The accountants created these “compilations” based on data submitted by the Trump entities. In order to borrow more and at lower rates, defendants submitted blatantly false financial data to the accountants, resulting in fraudulent financial statements. When confronted at trial with the statements, defendants’ fact and expert witnesses simply denied reality, and defendants failed to accept responsibility or to impose internal controls to prevent future recurrences."

First off, the trial covered 10 years of activities, The fine reflects that time frame. The fine reflects the amount of money (damages) generated by the fraud or the ill gotten gains (IGG).
If the IGG is a large number, the fine will be a large number. The claims the fine is excessive and will be reduced on appeal isn't a sure thing by any means. Over 10 years, the amount of IGG is very high. $355 mil is only excessive if it is more than the IGG realized.
In this case, IGGs are the damages. It doesn't matter that the banks were repaid.

From "The Trial" section.

"The eleven-week trial of this action addressed whether defendants are liable pursuant to the second through seventh causes of action and what monetary penalties and/or injunctive relief this Court should impose. Plaintiff is seeking “disgorgement” of “ill-gotten gains,” and to limit defendants’ abilities to conduct business in New York.

Constitutional provisions guaranteeing a jury trial, such as the Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution, apply only to cases “at common law,” so-called “legal” cases. The phrase “at common law” is used in contradistinction to cases that are “equitable” in nature. Whether a case is “legal” or “equitable” depends on the relief that plaintiff sought. Here, plaintiff seeks disgorgement and injunctions, each of which are forms of equitable relief. Thus, there was no right to a jury, and the case was “tried to the Court;” the Court being the sole factfinder and the sole “judge of credibility.”

Note: This footnote at bottom of page 6.
"3 In any event, neither party applied nor moved for a jury trial."


The fine was $355,000,000.

In this case, @127,000,000 of the fine comes from the profit on the sale of The Old Post Office.

@169,000,000 comes from $73,000,000 in saved interest on the Doral loan, $53,000,000 on The Old Post Office loan, @$17,000,000 on the trump Chicago loan, and @$24,000,000 on the 40 Wall Street loan for a total of @$169,000,000.

$60,000,000 in windfall profit from selling Ferry Point to Bally’s. Trump maintained the license agreement based on fraudulent financials and sold the license agreement to the Bally’s Corporation. Plus interest.

The mentioned loans had stipulations that trump had to maintain certain cash reserves and certain net worth figures. The fraud comes from trump inflating his net worth to receive favorable loan rates.

Example: "The Old Post Office guarantee explicitly stated that Trump’s representations were made “[i]n
order to induce Lender to accept this Guarant[ee] and to enter into the Loan Agreement and the
transactions thereunder,” and that loan obligations were “conclusively presumed to have been
created in reliance” on Trump’s guarantee and its representations. PX 305. This was confirmed
by the testimony of former and current Deutsche Bank employees Nicholas Haigh and David
Williams.
Pursuant to the personal guarantee, Donald Trump was required to “keep and maintain complete
and accurate books and records,” and to maintain $50 million in unencumbered liquidity and a
minimum net worth of $2.5 billion to be “tested and certified to on an annual basis based upon
the SFC delivered to Lender during each year.”

From page 76.

"In its summary judgment decision, this Court already found that the SFCs from 2014-2021 were false by material amounts as a matter of law. NYSCEF Doc. 1531 Indeed, materiality under this statute is judged not by reference to reliance by or materiality to a particular victim, but rather on whether the financial statement “properly reflected the financial condition” of the person to which the statement pertains. People v Essner, 124 Misc 2d 830, 835 (Sup Ct, NY County 1984) (“there need be no ‘victim,’ ergo, reliance is neither an element of the crime nor a valid yardstick with which to test the materiality of a false statement”).
Materiality has been one of the great red herrings of this case all along. Faced with clear evidence of a misstatement, a person can always shout that “it’s immaterial.” Absolute perfection, including with numbers, exists only in heaven. If fraud is insignificant, then, like most things in life, it just does not matter. As an ancient maxim has it, de minimis non curat lex,
the law is not concerned with trifles. Neither is this Court.

But that is not what we have here. Whether viewed in relative (percentage) or absolute (numerical) terms, objectively (the governing standard) or subjectively (how the lenders viewed them), defendants’ misstatements were material. United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously, or infamously, declared that he could not define pornography, but that he knew it when he saw it. Jacobellis v State of Ohio, 378 US 184, 197 (1964). The frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience.
Wisely, courts have refused to define “material” in a “one size fits all” fashion. At trial, this Court attempted to get the experts to go where Courts have dared not tread. Not surprisingly, a firm definition could not be found. But in the present context, this Court confidently declares that any number that is at least 10% off could be deemed “material,” and any number that is at least 50% off would likely be deemed material. These numbers are probably conservative given that here, such deviations from truth represent hundreds of millions of dollars, and in the case of Mar-a-Lago, possibly a billion dollars or more."

From page 66

"Mar-a-Lago

In 1995, Donald Trump signed a “Deed of Conservation and Preservation” in which he gave up the right to use Mar-a-Lago for any purpose other than as a social club (the “1995 Deed”). In 2002, Donald Trump granted a conservation easement to the National Trust for Historic Preservation and signed a deed in which, in addition to conveying the rights to develop or use Mar-a-Lago for any purpose other than a social club, the Deed further “limits changes to the Property including, without limitation, the division or subdivision of the Property for any purpose, including use as single family homes, the interior renovation of the mansion, which may be necessary and desirable for the sale of the property as a single family residential estate, the construction of new buildings and the obstruction of open vistas.” NYSCEF Doc. No. 1531
at 25-26 (emphasis added).


In exchange for executing the 2002 Deed, in which he gave away, in perpetuity, the right to develop or use the property as a single-family residence, Donald Trump paid significantly lower property taxes on Mar-a-Lago. PX 1730; TT 3533-3535.
McConney had in his possession, since at least 2011, a copy of the 2002 Deed, restricting the use of Mar-a-Lago as a single-family residence. TT 773-775; PX 1013; DX 360. McConney was also aware, when he prepared the SFCs supporting data, that the entire basis of the valuations of Mar-a-Lago rested on the premise that it could be sold as a private residence to an individual.
Each and every year, he valued Mar-a-Lago as if it could be sold as a single-family residence, notwithstanding the deeded prohibitions against such use in perpetuity. TT 759, 775.

Further, when Patrick Birney took over for McConney in preparing the valuations for the SFCs, Weisselberg and McConney both concealed from Birney the 1995 and 2002 deeds. TT 1258- 1259. When valuing Mar-a-Lago on the SFCs from 2016-2021, McConney and Weisselberg selected comparables for Birney to use that were exclusively for private residences. TT 1248- 1256, 1268-1282; see, e.g., PX 3026.
There is no legal gray area surrounding the permanent nature of the deed restrictions. PX 1013. Accordingly, there can be no mistake that Donald Trump’s valuation of Mar-a-Lago from 2011-
2021 was fraudulent."

And so it goes.
Several people claim they have read the entire ruling. Their arguments show they skimmed it at best. The "all the loans were repaid" and the "Mar-a-largo is worth a billion dollars" people need to reread and reevaluate (repeat as necessary) what they thought they read.
Counting on winning an appeal seems to me to be wishful thinking. Letting trump keep his IGGs is not an option either. He is a con man and shouldn't be rewarded.

Nice job of copying and pasting! From a document written by a highly-biased judge. Please read more about the case including the actual testimonies of the witnesses (not Kangaroo Engoron's biased summaries) and come back to us. Or better yet, if you're going to get sanctimonious, please find a worthier cause than supporting prosecutorial abuse. You'll have plenty of material when the cases in Washington D.C. and Fulton County, Georgia fire up.

For your convenience, I'll put my reply to your and others challenge to read the decision here in one place.

Originally Posted by Tiny

OK, I read it. Here are some thoughts

Crow

On page 2, Judge Engoron notes says the defendants “crow that the borrowers paid back all loans fully and on time.” That sounds very professional and impartial. Crow.

New York Executive Law, Section 63(12): A Prosecutors Wet Dream

Judge Engoron provides background on New York Executive Law 63(12), which the state of New York used to persecute, err, prosecute Donald Trump. Jacob Javits, the Attorney General of New York and State Comptroller Arthur Levitt, who presciently was looking for novel ways to screw politically unpopular businesses AND raise money for the state, decided “Why not grant the Attorney General authority” to prosecute almost anyone if it will put money in the state’s pockets. Subsequently the law was revised to allow the state to sue for “deception, misrepresentation, concealment, false pretense, false promise or unconscionable contractual provisions.”

Engoron notes the statute casts a wide net,” and “the general grant of power to the Attorney General under section 63(12) has traditionally been his most potent." This is a prosecutor’s wet dream!

Justification for the State of New York to Sue Anybody, Anywhere

Engoron says that New York City is the financial capital of the country, synonymous with capital formation, investing, trading, lending and borrowing, the “state has a quasi-sovereign interest in protecting the integrity of the marketplace.”

And so has it acted. The state of New York will line its coffers for fines related to loans by a German bank secured by properties in Chicago and Florida. That money won’t go to the German bank. Or Chicago or Florida. It goes to New York State!

The state of New York also attempted to line its coffers with money from Exxon Mobil for a ridiculous claim that the company misrepresented the risks of global warming to shareholders. In other words, the state of New York, using the same law it used to prosecute Trump, tried to make shareholders of Exxon Mobil pay the state of New York to compensate for harm done to the shareholders! Is that Kafkaesque or what?

Time limitation

This is key. The Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court ruled that only claims accruing after July 13, 2014 may be considered. Trump did default on loans before that date. Banks and bondholders and at least one hedge fund did suffer losses as a result. But to my knowledge he hasn’t defaulted since 2014.

A $455 million award for a victimless crime?

“It is undisputed that defendants have made all required payments on time.”

-Judge Engoron

Imposition of a corporate “death penalty”

Without hearing a word of testimony in court, Judge Engoron issued a 35 page Decision and Order on September 26, 2023, which granted the state of New York a Summary Judgement on the state’s first cause of action. As part of the judgement, Engoron cancelled the Trump Organization’s business certificates in the State of New York! He made it illegal for Trump’s entities to do business in the state! How the fuck is that supposed to happen when they own numerous real estate properties? Do the properties just escheat to the state, which sells them and keeps the money? Engoron however was overruled by the Apellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, “pending the final disposition of the defendants’ appeal.” This ruling disappeared from Engoron’s final decision. But shows how ridiculously prejudiced he was from the start.

Are you entitled to a trial by jury in front of your peers before the State absconds with $455 million of your property?

Well, fuck no.

“Constitutional provisions guaranteeing a jury trial…apply to only cases at common law. The phrase at common law is used in contradistinction to cases that are equitable in nature. Here, plaintiff seeks…equitable relief. Thus there was no right to a jury.”

Translation: It’s perfectly OK for a judge who’s affiliated with the Democratic Party to sit in judgement and determine fines all on his lonesome, even though the defendant is the second most unpopular Republican politician of the last 100 years. (The first was Joseph McCarthy.) We shouldn’t worry however because Engoron “was able to observe expressions demeanor and body language,” and consider “the simple touchstones of self-interest and other motives, common sense, and overall veracity,” while the Defendants crowed away.

Testimony of Witnesses

OK, this is where it gets a little tedious. Two accountants working for Trump said they took the Trump Organization’s word that documents it gave them were true and correct. Now IMHO nobody in his right mind would accept anything that came from Trump as true and correct, but given that they weren’t auditing his accounts, that’s standard accounting practice.

Next there are summaries of testimony from several Deutsche Bank employees. Please remember that only claims accruing after July 13, 2014 could be considered by Kangaroo Engoron. Well, by 2014, Deutsche Bank employees, unless they were totally incompetent, wouldn’t have assumed that Trump’s financial statements were “broadly accurate.” Yeah, maybe they testified to that effect, but given Deutsche Bank’s big hit on unsecured loans related to the Trump International Hotel & Tower around 2010, they knew better.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/b...ago-taxes.html

And Yada yada. I’m tired of this. Other than Winn Dixie, you gentlemen never stray from the MSNBC line. When we get to the Washington, D.C. and Fulton County, Georgia trials I’ll probably agree with you. Until then, try coming up with more convincing arguments related to Trump’s loans and sex life than you have. You don’t sound much different from those Republicans who claim Joe Biden got paid off to get the Ukrainian Prosecutor General fired, except there's perhaps a bit more basis to your accusations. I do believe that Trump’s misrepresentations related to his financial condition were unethical, and they’re one of a long list of reasons why I’d never vote for him. But it’s ridiculous to fine him $455 million when his creditors knew he was exaggerating his net worth, still chose to do business with him, and were paid off on schedule, after 2014 at least. If Trump were a Democrat you wouldn’t have a problem with any of this.

Originally Posted by Tiny

To refresh your memory, I accepted the challenge of the aforementioned board members to actually read Kangaroo Engoron's decision. For your review, here's Part 1 of my analysis:

https://www.eccie.net/showthread.php?p=1063433291

I left off in the middle of descriptions of testimony of some of the witnesses, and now shall proceed with the testimony of Michiel McCarty, expert witness for the State of New York on banking and capital markets. Judge Engoron determined the amounts of fines that Trump would have to pay based on McCarty's work.

McCarty determined what amount in interest Trump entities actually paid under the terms of loans for which Donald Trump provided a personal guarantee. And then repeated the exercise assuming the loans had no personal guarantees.

This was a simple exercise for most of the loan value used by Kangaroo Engoron to assess fines against Trump, because Deutsche Bank had already done the work for him. One division of Deutsche Bank, the Private Wealth Management division, priced and made loans to Trump, secured by specific properties. but these loans also required Trump's personal guarantee. In other words, if the loans went bad, the bank could go after not just the collateral, but also all of Trump's other unsecured assets.

And Deutsche Bank's Commercial Real Estate Division priced loans secured by the same properties, but without Trump's personal guarantee.

Mr. McCarty's work appears reasonable to me. The problem is the way Kangaroo Engoron used McCarty's work to assess fines.

To be continued, shortly

Originally Posted by Tiny

Engoron awarded $355 million to the state of New York, along with 9% per annum interest on the $355 million, or about $455 million to present. And the interest is increasing the amount owed by $112,000 every day.

So how did the judge come up with $355 million, all of which, plus interest, will go to the state of New York? Well, from Engoron’s decision (page 82) it’s disgorgement of the “defendant’s ill-gotten gains. Disgorgement is the equitable remedy that deprives wrongdoers of their net profits from unlawful activity.”

The first component is $168 million, based on the “personal guarantee interest rate differential.” The paid expert witness for the State of New York, Michiel McCarty (see Part 2), said that Trump saved $168 million in interest expense because Trump personally guaranteed three loans that were also secured by the real estate:

1. The Doral golf club. Trump borrowed $130 million from Deutsche Bank. He agreed to maintain a minimum net worth of $2.5 billion as part of his personal guarantee.

2. Trump International Hotel & Tower, Chicago, a mixed residential/commercial development. Trump obtained a credit facility of up to $62 million using unsold condos as collateral, and a second facility of up to $45 million, using commercial property as collateral. This loan was also conditioned upon a personal guarantee, and from reporting in the press, Trump was required to maintain a minimum net worth of $2.5 billion

3. The Old Post Office Loan, for Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C. Engoron does not report the amount of the loan in his decision, but according to reporting from Forbes in 2020, it was an estimated $170 million. This loan also was from Deutsche Bank. Trump agreed to a personal guarantee, and to maintain a minimum net worth of $2.5 billion.

Please note the loans above add up to $397 million, assuming the credit facilities were at some point fully drawn. The $168 million fine is 42% of the total amount Deutsche Bank loaned Trump!

Will a borrower pay a lower interest rate with a personal guarantee than without one? Yes, of course. But Deutsche Bank got a personal guarantee. Engoron’s claiming that personal guarantee was worth nothing, and that the fine should be set accordingly. That’s bull shit. Deutsche Bank was well aware of Trump’s history as a problematic creditor, having even been burned by a loan on the Trump Chicago property that predated the three loans above. The old loan was nonrecourse, meaning Trump did not personally guarantee it, so that DB could only come after the asset. They were burned once. They weren’t going to be burned twice.

So did Deutsche Bank believe Trump’s statements of financial condition (SFC’s)? I can’t imagine how they possibly could have, given common knowledge that Trump, John Barron, et al exaggerates his net worth.

From reporting in the press (see post 31 in this thread), after examining Trump’s Statements of Financial Condition, Deutsche Bank took Trump’s claimed net worth of $4.3 billion in 2011 and $5.8 billion in 2019, and marked it down to a minimum level of $2.4 billion to $2.5 billion. The bank was prepared to take the risk that Trump was worth a lot less than the amounts claimed in the SFC’s.

The rest of the story will have to wait, because I’ve run out of time. Kangaroo Engoron’s reasoning in setting the amount of the fine only gets more bizarre from here. Stay tuned for the next chapter.

Originally Posted by Tiny

In Part 3, I established Kangaroo Engoron's ludicrous reasoning for $168 million of his total $455 million in fines and interest. As promised, the story becomes even more ridiculous.

Trump made a profit of $126.8 million by purchasing a hotel in Washington D.C. and then reselling it, the "Old Post Office" property described in Part 3. Engoron makes the absurd assumption that Trump would have never gotten the loan to buy the building if not for falsifying his statement of financial condition. Therefore he must disgorge the entire $126.8 million profit.

He uses similar, fallacious reasoning to require Trump to disgorge $60 million from sale of the Ferry Point property.

So, we're now at $355 million in fines, to be paid not to the banks that allegedly were defrauded, but rather to the State of New York.

The remaining $100 million is interest, calculated from March 4, 2019, the date the Attorney General commenced its investigation. So Trump's paying interest on his loans from the banks, plus a bogus surcharge in the form of a fine imposed by Engoron, plus 9% interest on top of the other interest from 2019.

Incredible! No wonder Trump supporters are buying Bibles, contributing to Trump PAC's, and buying Trump Media stock.

[Jackie S]

All of this is a bunch of bullshit.

When this gets to the Supreme Court, they will rule, possibly 6 to 3, that the 8th Amendment is real, and was put in place to do curtail over zealous prosecutors and judges who are waging a political vendetta.

The Bill of Rights are not suggestions. They are Law. Latisha James and that dirt bag Judge have broken the Law.

It’s that simple.

[eyecu2]

Originally Posted by txdot-guy

Our economic systems require that the people and businesses involved tell the truth. The more fraud in the system the more likely it will have problems. There needs to be consequences for lying because it perverts the system. There is an absolute moral obligation for regulators to catch and punish those who violate both the spirit and law of the system.

ahh. the Regulators. I am guessing that in 'Trumplandia', "they don't need no stinking regulators!" If they aren't getting a lot of funding from Russia- per Eric Trump, then they are lying to get their funding from less un-domestic partners.

The complaint isn't that Trump breaks laws- it's that he does it with such class, that the lenders are happy, and Trump is happy. The state and it's pesky laws are just to run roughshod over whenever Trump feels like it. Not this time Mr. T.


Yet it could also be surmised that because of Trumps heavy use of NDAs or other silencing mechanisms, those who are trampled in litigation typically don't say a peep, or those who are hidden behind political walls or shareholder trusts- don't know they were swindled out of some gains that they should have enjoyed.

Tis the season for the grifters to grift.

[eyecu2]

Originally Posted by Jackie S

All of this is a bunch of bullshit.

When this gets to the Supreme Court, they will rule, possibly 6 to 3, that the 8th Amendment is real, and was put in place to do curtail over zealous prosecutors and judges who are waging a political vendetta.

The Bill of Rights are not suggestions. They are Law. Latisha James and that dirt bag Judge have broken the Law.

It’s that simple.

Cept the 8th amendment is for criminal cases and not Civil cases. I do think the penalty is a bit grandiose in it's volume;

So will the question be, will the case be thrown out- or not? That is the question.

Nope.

I do think that the penalty part may be in question, and that's ok. Wasn't it Trump who wanted "states to determine the laws" vs. the federal courts. He certainly did for abortion and if you want to waive that federal flag now, good luck. It's not going to work with how all things are being tossed back to states including border issues and of course- FRAUD would also be asked to handle the same way. The state of NY has already ruled, so now it's just a matter of the fine-

cue the victimless crime chimer's in 3, 2, 1, ....go

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by Jackie S

All of this is a bunch of bullshit.

When this gets to the Supreme Court, they will rule, possibly 6 to 3, that the 8th Amendment is real, and was put in place to do curtail over zealous prosecutors and judges who are waging a political vendetta.

The Bill of Rights are not suggestions. They are Law. Latisha James and that dirt bag Judge have broken the Law.

It’s that simple.

Blackman, may he RIP, believed the chances this would jump over into the federal court system and be appealed beyond the New York Supreme Court were low. That said, New York appellate judges overruled Engoron when he tried to jerk the Trump Organization's licenses to do business. And also lowered the amount of the bond to $175 million. I suspect the $455 million fine will be lowered substantially.

[Why_Yes_I_Do]

Most precient post in the thread. The presiding dynamic duo are toilet bowl licking, partisan lackeys.

Originally Posted by Jackie S

All of this is a bunch of bullshit.

When this gets to the Supreme Court, they will rule, possibly 6 to 3, that the 8th Amendment is real, and was put in place to do curtail over zealous prosecutors and judges who are waging a political vendetta.

The Bill of Rights are not suggestions. They are Law. Latisha James and that dirt bag Judge have broken the Law.

It’s that simple.

[txdot-guy]

Originally Posted by Jackie S

All of this is a bunch of bullshit.

When this gets to the Supreme Court, they will rule, possibly 6 to 3, that the 8th Amendment is real, and was put in place to do curtail over zealous prosecutors and judges who are waging a political vendetta.

The Bill of Rights are not suggestions. They are Law. Latisha James and that dirt bag Judge have broken the Law.

It’s that simple.

Originally Posted by Why_Yes_I_Do

Most precient post in the thread. The presiding dynamic duo are toilet bowl licking, partisan lackeys.

Good luck with that. They have documented proof that he and his businesses broke the law. The only thing to argue about now is the size of the restitution and fines. I know some people in this forum like to ignore the lies he tells but when you put them down on financial statements it’s a crime.