US judge has ruled that Donald Trump and his company fraudulently misrepresented his wealth for years while building the real estate empire that catapulted him to fame.
Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that the former US president fraudulently inflated his wealth by up to $3.6bn to get cheap loans, ahead of a trial due to start next Monday.
Issuing a ruling in the civil case, brought by the New York Attorney General’s office, that Trump had made false and misleading valuations for multiple real estate assets in statements to insurers and banks.
The attorney general, Letitia James, has said assets whose values were inflated included Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, his penthouse apartment in Manhattan’s Trump Tower, and various office buildings and golf courses.
She has said he inflated his net worth by as much as $2.23 billion, and by one measure as much as $3.6 billion (£2.96bn).
Judge Engoron said Ms James had established liability for false valuations of several properties, including Mar-a-Lago, and criticised Trump for offering defences in a deposition that were “wholly without basis in law or fact.”
“The documents here clearly contain fraudulent valuations that defendants used in business,” the judge wrote.
He added: “He claims that if the values of the property have gone up in the years since the (financial statements) were submitted, then the numbers were not inflated at that time.
“He also seems to imply that the numbers cannot be inflated because he could find a ‘buyer from Saudi Arabia’ to pay any price he suggests.”
A trial is scheduled for October 2, and could last well into December.
In the meantime, the judge ordered Trump’s company to cancel its New York business certificates.
It represents a major blow to Trump, whose lawyers had sought to persuade the judge to throw out the case.
Ms James’s lawsuit seeks a fine of roughly $250 million and to remove the Trump family from leading the Trump Organization.
But Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential race, has accused Ms James, a Democrat, of political persecution.
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