Judge orders Trump and his companies to pay $355 million in New York civil fraud case
A New York judge has ordered Donald Trump and his companies to pay $355 million in penalties
NEW YORK — A New York judge ordered Donald Trump and his companies on Friday to pay $355 million in penalties, finding they engaged in a yearslong scheme to dupe banks and others with financial statements that inflated his wealth.
Trump won’t have to pay out the money immediately as an appeals process plays out, but the verdict still is a stunning setback for the former president.
If he’s ultimately forced to pay, the magnitude of the penalty, on top of earlier judgments, could dramatically diminish his financial resources. And it undermines the image of a successful businessman that he’s carefully tailored to power his unlikely rise from a reality television star to a onetime — and perhaps future — president.
Judge Arthur Engoron concluded that Trump and his company were “likely to continue their fraudulent ways” without the financial penalties and other controls he imposed. Engoron concluded that Trump and his co-defendants “failed to accept responsibility” and that experts who testified on his behalf “simply denied reality.”
“This is a venial sin, not a mortal sin,” Engoron, a Democrat, wrote in a searing 92-page opinion. “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."
He said their “complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological” and “the frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience."
Trump, who built his reputation as a real estate titan, also was barred from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation for three years or from getting a loan from banks registered in his native
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