NEWS -- Court ruling goes against Trump... just prior to NY trial over business fraud
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BREAKING: Judge finds Donald Trump committed fraud with financial statements that exaggerated his wealth, value of his assets.
The New York attorney general won a major victory in her civil case against Donald J. Trump on Tuesday when a New York judge determined that the former president fraudulently inflated the value of his assets to obtain favorable loans and insurance deals.
The decision by Justice Arthur F. Engoron precedes a trial that is scheduled to begin Monday, and could considerably smooth Attorney General Letitia James's path.
Justice Engoron's decision narrows the issues that will be heard, effectively deciding that the trial was not necessary to find that Mr. Trump was liable and that the core of Ms. James's case was valid. It represents a major blow to Mr. Trump, whose lawyers had sought to persuade the judge to throw out many of the claims against the former president.
The judge also ordered sanctions against Mr. Trump's lawyers for making arguments that he previously rejected. He ordered each to pay $7,500.
Ms. James started investigating Mr. Trump in March 2019 and filed a lawsuit against him last September, accusing him of "staggering" fraud in representing the value of his apartment buildings, hotels and golf clubs, among other assets. Her filings have accused Mr. Trump of using simple, duplicitous tricks to multiply the value of his signature properties, from Trump Tower to Mar-a-Lago.
Mr. Trump knowingly overvalued his assets by as much as $2.2 billion in some years, Ms. James has argued.
Her lawsuit, which also names two of Mr. Trump's adult sons and his company as defendants, seeks a fine of roughly $250 million and to sever the Trump family from leading the Trump Organization.