For decades, Donald Trump has excelled New York's institutions. This week, he was legally defeated in the city that knows him best.
On Thursday, a Manhattan judge dismissed charges of election interference by Trump's defense team and opened a criminal trial for the "hush money" case during the March 25 primary — the first time in U.S. history that a former ** was involved.
A day later, a court across the street ordered Trump and his business to pay at least 3The $5.5 billion award for inflating the value of its real estate empire and committing ongoing fraud has torn up the ex-**'s carefully crafted image of a shrewd businessman in the process. 。
The two rulings changed the unfavorable momentum for Trump, who last week was basking in the glow of a short-lived legal victory, as the U.S. Supreme Court appeared poised to dismiss an attempt to block him from voting in November and a special counsel released a politically damaging report on the mental acumen of his 81-year-old opponent, Joe Biden.
They will put pressure on him financially and politically as they prepare for an intense and expensive one. They also demonstrate the limitations of Trump's preferred legal strategy, which is to complicate the scheduling of any potential trial by trying to delay the proceedings in any way possible, including appeals at every stage and mutual hearing of various pending cases.
By opting to file civil fraud charges against Trump in 2022 instead of filing a criminal case for allegedly falsifying financial statements, New York State Attorney General Letitia James was also able to try the former ** and his business before a single judge. Judges, not juries, have a lower burden of proof in criminal cases than prosecutors.
Across the street, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed a criminal indictment against Trump, alleging that Trump paid money to buy actress Stormy Daniels for silence on the eve of 2016, after the former failed in Stormy Daniels. Referral of the case to federal court – New York state law provides a relatively small opportunity for defendants to appeal before a judgment is issued.
Thus, among the four pending criminal cases against Trump, Prague's case will be heard first, forcing the 77-year-old Trump to abandon his campaign and enter the dirty Manhattan courtroom four days a week.
However, Catherine Christian, a former Manhattan prosecutor who oversaw multiple financial fraud investigations, said the 92-page civil verdict was "in many ways more damaging to Trump than a criminal conviction," and he vowed to appeal.
In addition to the financial penalties, the judge ordered Trump to be barred from operating a New York business for three years, meaning he could not hold any management positions at the Trump Organization and barred him or his company from lending to financial institutions registered in New York. State regulators, which include almost all major banks.
Joshua Naftalis, a former federal attorney in Manhattan, said, "This could hurt him in two ways — not only limiting his access to funding, but also limiting his ability and his children to run the business." He added that the Trump Organization is a family business through which Trump owns and operates his hotels, office buildings and golf courses, and has been borrowing to expand, "will have trouble getting more loans."
Trump escaped the worst outcome of a civil fraud case, the "corporate death penalty" ordered to dissolve his existing businesses, which could force him to sell off prized assets, such as the Trump Tower skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan.
But even for billionaires, losses are mounting. Naftalis**, if Trump loses the appeal as expected, "a jewel in his crown will have to be **" to satisfy the verdict, especially given that the former ** has already taken on the responsibility of paying E a total of $88 million. Two independent juries in Manhattan defamed Gene Carroll by denying that he had committed a ** against her in the '90s.
While Trump continues to fight legal battles on his own turf, his other criminal cases — including those involving alleged election interference and mishandling of classified documents — have been slow to progress in Washington and Miami, respectively.
However, these cases concern his conduct while in office, and in a polarized United States, assessments of his behavior tend to be partisan. The two men in New York "are indeed an indictment of Trump's life before he took office," when "he could lie in business and buy silence," Naftalis said.
Shortly after Friday's verdict, Trump spoke to reporters on the ornate steps of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in 2019. There, he complained that "a dishonest New York state judge just ruled that I had to pay a fine . . . Because a perfect company has been built". He warned that if the appeal was unsuccessful, "New York State would be finished."
Laws