For 20 years, Donald Trump and his family enriched themselves through “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentations,” New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges in a new lawsuit that accuses the Trumps of “grossly” inflating the former president’s net worth by billions of dollars and cheating lenders and others with false and misleading financial statements.
The civil lawsuit, filed Wednesday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, seeks a $250 million judgment and a prohibition on any of the Trumps leading a company in the state of New York.
Among other allegations, the suit claims that the former president’s Florida estate and golf resort, Mar-a-Lago, was valued as high as $739 million, but should have been valued at around one-tenth that amount, at $75 million. The suit says that higher valuation was “based on the false premise that it was unrestricted property and could be developed for residential use even though Mr. Trump himself signed deeds donating his residential development rights and sharply restricting changes to the property.”
James said her office is asking the court to “permanently bar” Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump from “serving as an officer for any business entity registered in New York state.”
“These acts of fraud and misrepresentation were similar in nature, were committed by upper management at the Trump Organization as part of a common endeavor for each annual Statement, and were approved at the highest levels of the Trump Organization – including by Mr. Trump himself,” the lawsuit reads.
