Posted on 01/05/24
| News Source: The Hill
Former President Trump, his business and several top executives — including his adult sons — used “myriad deceptive schemes” to falsely inflate his net worth by billions, the New York attorney general’s office argued Friday in court filings ahead of closing remarks in his fraud trial next week.
“The conclusion that defendants intended to defraud when preparing and certifying Trump’s (statements of financial condition) is inescapable,” reads the state’s post-trial brief.
Trump’s statements of financial condition — documents that detail the value of the Trump Organization’s various assets — are at the heart of the attorney general’s case. The financial statements were sent to banks and insurers to secure loans and deals, which the state purports is evidence of fraud.
New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) asked the judge to force Trump to pay nearly $370 million as a penalty and to issue a lifetime ban on the former president and two top executives from doing real estate business in New York.
In their post-trial brief, Trump’s counsel repeated claims they made at trial — that banks wanted to work with the Trump Organization, did their due diligence and found no fraud.
“Errors or misstatements happen all the time in accounting, if there are no indicia of fraud such as concealment, forgery, or deceit, then there is no basis to determine that these SFCs are fraudulent, and any misstatements are just accidental errors,” the defense brief states.