Former President Donald Trump suffered a severe defeat in court, after a judge in Manhattan ordered the Trump Organization to submit to an independent monitor to continue its operations.
This means a new victory for Attorney General Letitia James, who had requested monitoring as a necessary step, due to the behavior of the former president’s company, which is facing charges of fraud.
The judge of the New York Supreme Court, Arthur Engoron, pointed out that his decision was due precisely to “the propensity shown by Trump and his company to participate in persistent fraud”.
The independent monitor will be selected by the Attorney General’s Office, but the final decision will be made by the judge.
The The Trump Organization will not be able to carry out transactions without first “notifying in writing 14 days before” the Office of the Attorney General (OAG, in English) or the court.
“This court will appoint an independent monitor, who will be paid by the defendants, for the purpose of ensuring compliance with this order,” the decision says. “If the monitor reasonably determines that the defendants have violated this order, then the monitor may immediately report it to the OAG, the defendants, and the Court.”
The monitoring will operate for at least one year, according to the decision of Judge Engoron, who has made other determinations on the case led by prosecutor James, particularly in forcing the Trumps to hand over key information and render testimony.
Since the end of last September, the former president, his family business and his children Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric, have been facing a lawsuit by the New York Attorney General’s Office, accused of having lied to lenders and insurers for more than a decade.
“With the help of his children and top executives of the Trump Organization, Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to enrich himself unfairly and cheat the system,” said prosecutor James. “In fact, the basis of his alleged net worth is rooted in incredible fraud and lawlessness.”
In the judicial document of more than 200 pages, prosecutor James – who is a Democrat – establishes that the fraud would have been committed with several properties, including golf properties, whose values were inflated to obtain benefits in insurance companies and taxpayers.
This civil lawsuit – which includes actions of 2011 to 2021– is for $250 million dollars in funds allegedly misappropriated.
It was then that prosecutor James announced that she would seek to limit the operations of the Trump Organization.
2021