At a Wednesday morning press conference, Letitia James, New York Attorney General, announced that her office would file suit against Donald Trump’s children and his family. She claimed they had benefited from the fraud.
James, the former president, and his family were accused of “persistent, repeated business fraud” at the press conference.
The civil suit was filed Wednesday at State Supreme Court in Manhattan. It seeks a judgment of $250 million and an interdiction on Trump from leading any company in New York.
The suit alleges that Mar-a-Lago, the ex-president’s Florida estate with a golf resort in Florida, was valued at $739 million. However, it should have been valued at approximately one-tenth of that amount at $75 million. According to the suit, the higher valuation was “based upon the false assumption that it was unrestricted and could be developed residentially even though Mr. Trump signed deeds restricting the property’s development and donating residential development rights.”
According to a footnote to the lawsuit, James refers her findings to Manhattan federal prosecutors who may open a criminal investigation into banking fraud.
Alina Habba (Trump’s lawyer), stated that the lawsuit is not focused on the facts or the law, but rather on advancing Trump’s political agenda.
She stated that “it is clear that the Attorney General’s Office exceeded its statutory authority by probing into transactions where absolutely nothing wrongdoing occurred.” “We are confident that the judicial system will not allow this unchecked abuse, and we look forward to defending our client against every meritless claim of the Attorney General.”
Last month, James turned down a settlement offer by the Trump organization.
Trump traveled to New York for a deposition in August. However, he repeatedly invoked Section 5 during the interview. After Michael Cohen, a former Trump lawyer, testified in front of Congress that Trump’s financial statements had inflated his assets in order to get more favorable loans, the attorney general’s investigation began in 2019.
