Donald Trump will likely tell an appeal court that there were no victims in his recent fraud case, a leading corporate lawyer has said.
Bryan M. Sullivan, a founding partner at Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae LLP in Los Angeles, told Newsweek that one of the former president's strongest lines of argument will be that nobody suffered any loss as a result of Trump's inflated property valuations.
"While the New York attorney general would argue that the victims were the banks who would have made more money off of interest, those banks are sophisticated entities who could have done their own analysis on the large deals they were doing with Trump," he said.
Sources close to the Trump legal team have also said that the lack of victims in the case will be part of the appeal.
In September 2022, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Trump, his two adult sons—Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump—the Trump Organization, and two firm executives, Allen Weisselberg and Jeff McConney. Judge Arthur Engoron, who oversaw the trial, found that Trump inflated his assets to get more favorable business loans.
In late 2023 and continuing into early January, a trial was held to determine how much the former president and his associates would pay in damages. Engoron ruled on February 16 that Trump would have to pay $454 million in penalties and interest.
Sullivan said he didn't think Trump will succeed in challenging the merits of the case because the judge's decision "was very well thought out and supported by evidence."
"The law and appeals court do not re-litigate final decisions after trial and defer to the trial judge's discretion on factual findings."
"So I would expect Trump to challenge the statute's constitutionality and the extent of authority granted to the New York Attorney General to enforce that statute, or to focus on the lack of victims," Sullivan said.
Greg Germain, a law professor at Syracuse University in New York, told Newsweek on Tuesday that Trump had a strong case to challenge Engoron's "seriously flawed" ruling.
Newsweek sought email comment from Engoron's office on Wednesday.
On Monday, the First Department of the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court reduced the bond Trump had to post in the case from $454 million to $175 million.
It also gave the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential election 10 additional days to raise the payment. Newsweek contacted Trump's attorney for comment by email on Wednesday.
If Trump raises the money, the court will put a stay on any enforcement proceedings against his assets while he appeals the fraud judgment.
Germain said that Engoron's method for calculating the amount of disgorgement was "seriously flawed."
"I think the $175 million reduction ... shows that the appellate division has serious concerns about the validity of Judge Engoron's decision," Germain said.
As part of Engoron's ruling in February, Trump, Weisselberg and McConney would also be barred from serving as officers or directors of any New York corporation or other legal entity in the state for three years. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump were ordered to each pay more than $4 million and were barred from doing business in the state for two years.
The former president has maintained his innocence in the case and has said it and the other legal matters he faces are politically motivated.
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Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more
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