Donald Trump Must Pay $355M In NYC Civil Fraud Case, Judge Rules
NEW YORK CITY — Former President Donald Trump must pay a $355 million penalty for a scheme to inflate his wealth, a judge ruled Friday.
The ruling Friday by Judge Arthur Engoron is all-but certain to be appealed by Trump, who contended in often-inaccurate terms that the proceeding was a political witchhunt.
Trump would also be barred for three years from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation. Engoron did walk back an earlier ruling that would have dissolved Trump’s companies.
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Engoron said Trump’s and his associates’ refusal to admit wrongdoing suggested they would continue.
“Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological,” the judge said.
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Trump had yet to comment on the decision as of publication. His last Truth Social account post before the ruling was a complaint about an unflattering image of himself playing golf that he said was generated by AI.
Trump lawyer Alina Habba called the verdict “manifest injustice.”
The ruling came after a contentious two-month trial in which Trump often appeared and often clashed with Engoron, who fined him for violating a gag order.
Trump, before testimony in the trial, labeled Engoron as a “wacko” and “RADICAL LEFT, DEMOCRAT OPERATIVE JUDGE.”
Before the trial started, Engoron essentially found the evidence against Trump overwhelming. He found Trump liable for fraudulently overstating his wealth, such as falsely claiming his Trump Tower penthouse was nearly three times its actual size.
The trial covered how many damages Trump and his companies would face.
New York Attorney General Letitia James and her lawyers said Trump puffed up his wealth by as much as $3.6 billion in a single year.
Doing so made Trump qualify for better loan terms and complete projects he might not have been able to otherwise.
“Claiming money that you do not have does not amount to the ‘art of the deal,'” she said when she announced the case in 2022. “It’s the art of the steal.”
James ultimately argued that Trump should face $370 million in penalties and a lifetime ban for doing business in the state.
Engoron’s ruling fell short of that, but still represented a significant penalty for the former president.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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