What to know about Trump’s civil fraud verdict and its possible impact

What to know about Trump’s civil fraud verdict and its possible impact

Former president Donald Trump, his adult sons and other top executives at the Trump Organization on Friday were ordered to pay more than $450 million in penalties, plus interest, following a civil fraud trial in which a judge found they had carried out a years-long scheme to use false financial data to borrow money at lower rates.

Trump himself was ordered to pay more than $354 million, plus interest that so far is estimated to total about $100 million. He and others were banned for years from taking leadership roles in companies in New York state.

Here’s what to know about the case, the verdict and its impact.

Can Trump pay — and will he appeal?

The short answer is yes to both. Trump said shortly after the verdict that he plans to appeal.

Bloomberg Billionaires Index recently estimated the former president’s net worth at $3.1 billion, with about $600 million in cash assets. The fine could consume more than half of those assets — a big chunk of his fortune — potentially prompting the company to sell more real estate if it wants to free up cash. Last year, Forbes downgraded its estimate of the former president’s net worth to $2.5 billion, $600 million less than its previous estimate.

Trump still has the ability to make a lot more money, however, from paid speeches, promotional businesses and the golf courses, hotels and resorts that he operates. A review by The Washington Post last July showed that Trump had earned about $1 billion since his presidency ended. On Thursday, the parent company of Truth Social, the former president’s social media platform, won a key merger approval, which could give Trump a stake worth nearly $4 billion.

Can Trump still operate his business in New York state?

New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron barred Trump from serving as an officer or director of any New York firm for three years. He barred Trump’s elder sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, from doing so for two years. The judge ordered that the company operate under the close eye of two overseers, a monitor and an independent director of compliance, to ensure that the company complies with financial reporting obligations.

Were Trump’s adult sons and other Trump Org. executives also fined?

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump were fined $4 million each. Two former top Trump Organization officials — Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer, and Jeffrey McConney, who reported to him — were all blocked from working as directors or officers for any New York corporation for three years. Weisselberg was found to be liable for $1 million in ill-gotten funds, and both he and McConney were banned for the rest of their lives from working in “the financial control function” of any New York company.

Who is the judge who levied these penalties?

New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron is a veteran jurist nearing the end of his career. He worked as a law clerk for a state court judge and in private practice before taking the bench in 2003.

Engoron presided over Trump’s 10-week business fraud trial this fall, interspersing contentious moments with jokes and sometimes growing impatient and irritated with Trump’s antics inside the courtroom and in public remarks. The judge also sometimes had to referee contentious disputes between Trump’s defense team and the attorney general’s office.

In October, Engoron placed a gag order on Trump after the former president posted on social media about the judge’s law clerk and included a picture of her. The order forbade Trump or others from talking about court staff. Trump was fined $15,000 for violating the order twice.

The judge did not hold back in his ruling on Friday, saying Trump and other defendants had “submitted blatantly false financial data” to accountants, causing the flawed financial statements to emerge.

“This is a venial sin, not a mortal sin,” Engoron wrote, referring to the two Catholic categories of wrongdoing, the first being minor offenses and the second being grave offenses to God. “Defendants did not commit murder or arson. They did not rob a bank at gunpoint. Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff. Yet defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways.”

New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron presided over former president Donald Trump’s civil business fraud trial, refereeing spats between Trump’s defense team and lawyers from the New York Attorney General’s office and hitting Trump with a gag order.

Who brought the case?

New York Attorney General Letitia James sued the Trump Organization and its top executives, including Donald Trump. The lawsuit alleged that the company routinely inflated the value of Trump’s real estate empire to negotiate better interest rates from lenders and to cut down on insurance policy costs. Engoron ruled for James, and wrote on Friday that “The frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience.”

Hours after the judge issued his verdict, James spoke to reporters, pushing back against a central argument of Trump and his lawyers: that no one was harmed by the way the company valued its properties.

“I want to be clear: white-collar financial fraud is not a victimless crime,” James said. “When the powerful break the law and take more than their fair share, there are fewer resources available for working people.”

What other financial penalties has Trump faced recently?

Trump, who is the leading Republican candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, faces $88.5 million in judgments from two other civil lawsuits in the past year, both brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll. A Manhattan federal jury in January ordered Trump to pay Carroll $65 million in punitive damages and $18.3 million in compensatory damages for defaming her, after a different civil jury found last year that Trump had sexually abused the writer decades ago and defamed her when she publicly accused him of wrongdoing. The first jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million.

Devlin Barrett and Azi Paybarah contributed to this report.