Trump to pay US$25M to settle Trump U suits

LOS ANGELES •Presidentelect Donald Trump agreed to pay US$25 million to settle claims that his defunct Trump University cheated more than 6,000 students with false promises of teaching them his real-estate secrets, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement.

The deal, announced Friday minutes before the start of a court hearing in San Diego, will resolve two lawsuits in California by former students, as well as New York’s fraud case filed in 2013, Schneiderman’s office said. One of the San Diego cases was scheduled for trial in 10 days.

Trump, 70, was accused of conning thousands of students, including many senior citizens, into paying as much as US$35,000 for real-estate seminars by falsely telling them they’d be taught by his hand-picked instructors at an accredited university.

Trump has repeatedly denied the fraud allegations and has cited Trump University’s 98-per-cent approval rating as evidence the program was providing valuable instruction.

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego was set to consider Trump’s request to postpone the Nov. 28 trial until after his inauguration.

The class action was brought on behalf of former students from California, Florida and New York. Schneiderman claimed students lost as much as US$40 million and that Trump may have personally made as much as US$5 million.

“Donald Trump fought us every step of the way, filing baseless charges and fruitless appeals and refusing to settle for even modest amounts of compensation for the victims of his phoney university,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “Today, that all changes. Today’s US$25-million settlement agreement is a stunning reversal by Donald Trump and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.”