On Trump Civil Fraud Decision, Both Sides Claim a Win

President Donald Trump is off the hook of paying the nearly half-billion-dollar fine imposed following a decision in a 2023 civil fraud case in New York. At the same time, the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, is touting an appeals court’s decision to leave other penalties alone.

The First Department of the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court ruled that the fine was unconstitutionally excessive. However, it left intact the 2023 decision that found the family business liable for fraud. The appellate panel also left intact penalties that included barring some firm executives from operating businesses in New York for three years.

“While harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half-billion-dollar award to the state,” Judge Peter Moulton wrote as part of the decision Thursday, according to the The New York Times. (The department had been reviewing the case since last summer.) 

But James seemed unbothered by the ruling, which, in her opinion, validates the yearslong case against Trump that essentially came to a close in September 2023. It hinged on the alleged inflation of the value of assets such as 40 Wall Street and Trump Seven Springs.

“The First Department today affirmed the well-supported finding of the trial court: Donald Trump, his company and two of his children are liable for fraud,” James said in a statement following the ruling. “The court upheld the injunctive relief we won, limiting Donald Trump and Trump Organization" class="company-link">The Trump Organization officers’ ability to do business in New York.”

The attorney general’s  office will look to overturn the appellate court’s decision, however.

“We will seek appeal to the Court of Appeals and continue to protect the rights and interests of New Yorkers,” James added.

Eric Trump — who, along with brother Donald Trump Jr., is a top executive at the Trump Organization — expressed vindication in the matter.

“For nearly six years, our family business was relentlessly targeted in what was clearly a politically motivated attack — driven by a partisan attorney general who campaigned on taking down my father and derailing his political career without a shred of evidence,” Eric Trump said in a statement. “Despite the media smears, the courtroom grandstanding and the endless resources thrown at this case, the truth prevailed.”

David Friedman, another judge in the decision, said he believed the attorney general’s true aim in the case was to influence the 2024 presidential election and cripple Trump financially — a matter on which U.S. voters rendered their own verdict when Trump beat Kamala Harris in November.

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.