Trump sued for 200 fraudulent claims totalling $250m

Donald Trump, his family business, and three of his adult children are being sued by New York’s attorney general, who accused them of overvaluing the former US president’s assets and net worth through a decade of lies to banks and insurers.

Attorney General Letitia James filed her civil lawsuit in a New York state court in Manhattan, accusing the Trump Organisation of “fraud and misrepresentation” in preparing financial statements from 2011 to 2021. She said Trump inflated his wealth by billions of dollars to help his company obtain favorable financial terms on transactions, including lower interest rates and cheaper insurance coverage.

The 214-page complaint also names Trump’s adult children Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump as defendants, as well as longtime company executives including former Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg.

The lawsuit adds to many legal woes for Trump, including a criminal probe in Georgia over his efforts to undo the 2020 presidential election, and a federal investigation into his handling of presidential records, prompting an FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-lago estate on August 8.

James, a Democrat, said the values of 23 assets had been “grossly and fraudulently inflated,” and her office uncovered more than 200 examples of misleading asset valuations.

Those assets included marquee properties such as Mar-alago in Florida and Trump’s penthouse apartment atop Manhattan’s Trump Tower, James said. The lawsuit seeks to recoup at least $250 million of alleged improper gains.

James said Trump pretended his Trump Tower apartment was 30,000 square feet, when it was actually 10,996 square feet, and that its $327 million valuation in 2015 was “absurd” because no New York City apartment had sold for $100 million at the time.

She also said Trump valued Mar-a-lago as high as $739 million by pretending it could be developed for residential use, and that it should have been valued closer to $75 million. — Reuters