Trump Family Fumes Over $400 Million In Fines
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
NEW YORK (Worthy News) – Donald J. Trump was weighing his options Saturday after the former U.S. president and his trust were ordered to pay $453.5 million in penalties and interest, a ruling experts say could leave him without cash and tarnish his image as a successful billionaire.
The staggering fines came after last month, a federal jury in Manhattan ordered Trump to pay $83.3 million to writer E. Jean Carroll in a defamation case stemming from her claims that he sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s
Questions were raised Saturday about how the 77-year-old Trump will pay the combined $536.8 million in losses from two damaging courtroom defeats.
Trump says both cases were “political hit jobs” aimed at stalling his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, and he’s vowed to appeal.
However, the judge, Arthur F. Engoron, agreed with prosecutors that Trump fraudulently inflated the value of real estate holdings, including his own Trump Tower in New York City and his penthouse and his private club in Florida, to receive favorable loans.
The judge also barred Trump from serving as an officer or director of a New York company for three years and his adult sons for two. One of them, Eric Trump, is the Trump Organization’s de facto chief executive, and the ruling places the leadership of the business in uncertain territory, commentators said.
NEW YORK SKYLINE
Trump Organization executive vice president Eric Trump condemned the ruling, saying his father revitalized and rebuilt much of New York City’s skyline as the city fell on hard times in the 1980s and 90s.
“My father built the skyline of New York City: And this is the thanks he gets for doing absolutely nothing wrong,” Eric Trump stressed.
In one of the more noted instances, the elder Trump partnered with Hyatt Hotels in 1976 to revamp the ailing Commodore next to Grand Central Terminal, the New York Post newspaper recalled.
He quarreled with then-Mayor Ed Koch in the 1980s over major projects, leading the Democrat to claim he wouldn’t “believe Donald if his tongue was notarized” and Trump reportedly saying Koch’s mayorship was unique in being both “corrupt and incompetent.”
Trump now has 30 days to come up with the money or secure a bond that would guarantee the State of New York that he has the money to pay while his court appeals are pending.
That’s easier said than done: Justice Engoron prohibited Trump and his company from applying for loans with banks registered in New York for three years. And lenders may not stand in line to pay his vast bills.
THORN IN SIDE
Another problem for the elder Trump is the judge strengthening the hand of Barbara Jones, an independent monitor he assigned to oversee the Trump Organization.
The Trump family is furious that he extended her three-year appointment with new authority.
She has reportedly been “a thorn in the side“ of the firm, and Trump’s lawyers complained that her work has already cost them more than $2.5 million.
The judge asked Jones to appoint an independent director of compliance as her eyes and ears, reporting to her from within the company’s ranks.
With pressure mounting, there are fears among family members and friends that Donald J. Trump will have to start selling real estate as even the man with a billionaire image will one day have to pay his bills.
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