Talk:New York business fraud lawsuit against the Trump Organization

Dispute over the value of Mar-a-Lago

Real estate experts are claiming that Mar-a-Lago is worth far, far, far more than the amount that Judge Arthur Engoron has said it is worth.

To back up their claims, they cited the value of similar properties in the nearby region.

I think this should be included in the article.

What do other editors think?

https://nypost.com/2023/09/27/donald-trumps-mar-a-lago-worth-at-least-300m-sources/

SquirrelHill1971 (talk) 06:41, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

That may be, but cite reliable sources. The New York Post is deprecated. We don't use it. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 06:43, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. Here's a second source which says the same thing:

https://www.nysun.com/article/error-in-new-yorks-civil-fraud-case-against-trump-is-flagged-by-industry-insiders-who-say-valuation-of-mar-a-lago-cited-by-judge-is-based-on-a-misunderstanding-of-basic-real-estate-practice

SquirrelHill1971 (talk) 22:03, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately, we don't have a ruling at WP:RSP on The New York Sun, and I don't know much about it. Maybe it's okay, maybe not. I'll let others weigh in on this. Can you find some more prominent sources, like The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, etc.? It would be good to have at least a couple of such sources to give this due weight for mention. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:38, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Associated Press is now reporting the same thing:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mar-lago-worth-1-billion-trumps-winter-home-103832647

SquirrelHill1971 (talk) 13:19, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Mar-a-Lago isn't a private residence, so comparing it's value to other private residences is pointless. It is deeded as a private club and so it has it use that to calculate it's value. If it were a private residence, then yes those higher values could be accurate. But it's theoretical. You'd have to find estimates that take into account that it is a club.Patken4 (talk) 22:56, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Associated Press article:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mar-lago-worth-1-billion-trumps-winter-home-103832647 SquirrelHill1971 (talk) 13:19, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Seems like the article says the value is a giant ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. The judge had to decide between what the prosecution presented, the county evaluation, and what the defense presented, which was based as a private residence. Patken4 (talk) 17:36, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Looking at the article, there really isn't a place where the appraised value is discussed as a dollar figure, so there isn't any reason to include what real estate people estimate the value to be. This goes double since even these experts estimates are all over the place, and some still don't even consider the restrictions that are currently in place on the property.Patken4 (talk) 21:31, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Engoron did not say it was worth $18 million. He said county assessors appraised it at $18 million. MAL is deed restricted and "when you have restrictions on a property, it'll only decrease, not increase the value of the property."[1] soibangla (talk) 23:08, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Associated Press article:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mar-lago-worth-1-billion-trumps-winter-home-103832647 SquirrelHill1971 (talk) 13:20, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't believe that Engoron ever said how much Mar-a-Lago is worth. He pointed out that Trump was valuing it as though it was a private residence, even though "he signed away the right to use or develop Mar-a-Lago as anything other than a social club":

Nonetheless, Donald Trump insisted that he believed Mar-a-Lago is worth between a billion and a billion five today, which would require not only valuing it as a private residence, which the deed prohibits, but as more than the most expensive private residence listed in the country by approximately 400%.Decision, p. 36

--Macrakis (talk) 23:43, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Conservative reactions?

Apart from a reference to Fox News, have there been any conservative reactions that should go in the Reactions section? Nowa (talk) 21:07, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Ivanka Trump vz. the ruling

Engoron's ruling comprises 92 pages. I (superficially) looked it through. I then read the section New York civil investigation of The Trump Organization#Ruling, and found a discrepancy as regards Ivanka. The problem is that on the one hand she was not a defendent but a witness; and that was treated in the ruling as a witness, not a defendant; while our article presents Engoron's characterization of Ivanka as a (bad) witness as if it were an implicit way of stating that she indeed were guilty, although for technical reasons not indicted. I think this factually goes against the great care we should take (and usually take) by WP:BLP. On the other hand, the quoted secondary source at least to some degree might be said to support the suggestion that Engoron did criticise Ivanka for participation in criminal activity as a part of his judgement; and agains this I only can put up my conviction from reading the primary source that this is not the case.

In fact, the major part of the ruling (pp. 7−60) described and commented on the testimonies from some 40 people, which included non-party witnesses, the defendants, party witnesses, and experts. Engoron spends rather varying lengths of texts on them, varying in length from a few lines on a testimony stroken from the record due to a sustained protest from the prosecution to over four pages for an expert witness from the defence (pp. 52−56). In most cases (excepting testimonies he considers irrelevant as not concerning the issues), he make some assessment on the reliability of the testimony. (My amateurish impression is that in general he found the independent witnesses and those called by the prosecution more reliable than those called by the defense.) As the secondary source notes, he spent one and a half page on the testimony by Ivanka Trump; he does note that she claimed that she didn't remember even matters where she had been involved in a central position, namely, in the negotiation of a major loan from Deutsche Bank, when questioned by the prosecution, but showed a much better memory for details when questioned by the defence; but his conclusions only concerned her realiable as a witness. She is mentioned also in a few other places; in the summaries of other testimonies, in the account of the legal history before the proceedings; and twice, briefly, in the later section on fraud in business. In the history, she is mentioned in the summary of an appelate court ruling from June 27, 2023 (pp. 4−5 of Engoron's ruling), which among others dismissed Ivanka from the charges. The two "fraud in business" mentions are one on p. 40, enumerating her as one of Donald Trumps three children getting a share of the gain after selling the Old Post Office, and once on p. 74, where the same people are enumerated as being the objects of an ongoing juridical investigation. The latter instance is a typical example of the care Engoron takes as regards "the non-defendant" Ivanka Trump. The investigation (which was well known to the defendants) is mentioned as part of showing that a declaration of the Trump Organization that they were not involved with or risked any litigation was false, supporting the charges against defendants (and none other).

Similarly, Ivankas "central role" in the loan negotiations just are employed for discussion of her claim that she didn't remember one of the more important points, namely, the great weight the bank put on personal guarantees from Dionald Trump, and statements about his liquidity needed to support these guarantees. (Trump Sr. was obligued to guarantee access to at least 2.5 billion dollars in cash at all times. He did so in later reports to the bank, by some typical Trumpish exaggeration, and by including the cash flow at a company where he just held a 30% ownership, and thus did not have access to its cash. The defense claimed that this was of no matter, since in reality the bank didn't care about this demands on Trump's liquidity. However, they did, as their non-party testimonies showed; and Ivanka at that time was very well aware of this, according to Engoron's findings from e. g. email; but seemingly Ivanka (who had negotiated a lowering from 3 billion to 2.5 billion) testfied that she didn't remember this.) Now, we may guess that Engoron had used this against Ivanka, if she would have been a defendant; but he never hints as much. Therefore, guessing this is what WP usually calls a synthesis. The secondary source (Business Insider) IMHO makes a synthesis of this kind; I think that they give a fair description of the facts, as far as they go; but they present Engoron's 'suspicions' as if these concerned Ivanka being guilty of business fraud. As far as I read the ruling, the judges 'suspicions' are only presented as pertaining the veracity of Ivanka's testimony; thus, perhaps, it may be correct to say that he hints at her maybe being guilty of perjury (although he also does not state this or directly threatens her or any other witness with such charges), but nothing else. In the 'historic' section, some reasons for her earlier being indicted are implied; guilt of anything punishable (except possibly, if provable, perjury) is out of the question, after the appelate court's ruling.

In my mind, all this poses a complicated problem. If I'm right from just reading the primary source, the presentation of Engoron as stating that he suspects Ms. Trump of being guilty of business fraud is clearly against WP:BLP for two living people, namely, for Ivanka Trump and for Arthur Engoron. (I'm not a lawyer; but I suspect that if Engoron indeed had employed his legitimate discussion of just a witness'es reliability as a witness for seeding suspicions of her being culpable of a crime a higher court has dismissed from the preceedings, then Arthur himself might have been found guilty of some kind of misconduct. At least, it would have been considered as unprofessional, I think.) This could be remedied easily, by moving up this paragraph, adding a few words on Engoron's lengthy discussion of witnesses, and making it clear that one of the witnesses he found less reliable, and in this case even 'suspicious' (as regards the veracity of her claims of memory losses) was Ivanka. However, I could only do this based on my reading of the primary source. On the other hand, I do not think that we could let the IMHO incorrect synthesis stand; not in a WP:BLP matter. A third possibility would be to remove the entire paragraph (but thereby missing also completely eliminating the criticism the judge indeed did direct against one of the most wellknown figurants in this case). What do you think? JoergenB (talk) 22:44, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

There has happened very little with the text about Mz. Trump. The added heading actually underlines the idea that Engoron's statement about her were a part of the ruling proper, instead of a part of the analysis of the reliability of the witnesses. Thus, the reader gets the impression that Engoron stated that he suspects Ivanka Trump to be guilty of partaking in the fraud, rather than guilty of perjury. As I stated above, I think that this is a violation of WP:BLP, with respect both to the judge and the witness.

Since this is a fairly serious matter, I'll make an edit, shifting up the statement a bit, and add the context in which it was given. Unhappily, this is based on employing Engoron's 92 pages judgement as a primary source. We are supposed to avoid this; but I do not think that the present formulation could be permitted to stand, without the explanation that it technically just concerned her reliability as a witness.

I'm not happy with this solution. I'd also be unhappy to remove Engoron's statement entirely; it is relevant. The happy solution would be to find a reliable secondary source which gives a reasonably correct and sufficient description of the context of the statement. JoergenB (talk) 22:40, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Fine vs disgorgement

The article consistently uses the word "fine" to characterize the $364m judgement against Trump et al. But "fine" (or "penalty") is the wrong word. A fine is a penalty, a financial punishment. But Engoron's decision consistently uses the word "disgorgement" or the phrase "disgorgement of ill-gotten gains" as an "equitable remedy".

The article is also not clear that Law 63(12) intentionally does not require identifying a "victim":

Disgorgement is distinct from the remedy of restitution because it focuses on the gain to the wrongdoer as opposed to the loss to the victim .... Thus, disgorgement aims to deter wrongdoing by preventing the wrongdoer from retaining ill-gotten gains from fraudulent conduct. Accordingly, the remedy of disgorgement does not require a showing or allegation of direct losses to consumers or the public; the source of the ill-gotten gains is “immaterial” [2]

This is a very important point. --Macrakis (talk) 00:07, 29 February 2024 (UTC)