A New York judge has found Donald Trump and his adult sons liable for fraud and canceled the Trump Organization’s business certification, saying the Trumps provided false financial statements for roughly a decade.
Judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling came days before the civil case involving the New York attorney general’s office and the former president was set to go to trial.
Engoron granted Attorney General Letitia James’ motion for summary judgment, finding Trump, his sons, and others “to be liable as a matter of law for persistent violations” of New York state law. He found the financial statements the Trumps provided to lenders and insurers for about a decade to be false and said they repeatedly engaged in fraud.
The decision is a blow to Trump and a complete rejection of his arguments that he didn’t inflate the values of his golf courses, hotels, homes at Mar-a-Lago and Seven Springs on financial statements that were repeatedly used in business.