NEW YORK — Lawyers for former President Donald Trump told a New York City appeals court Thursday that the nearly $500 million civil fraud judgment against the former president stemmed from a “clear-cut” violation of the statute of limitations and that the costly judgment should be overturned.
D. John Sauer, Trump’s lawyer, told a five-judge panel during oral arguments that the case brought by Attorney General Letitia James was not brought in a timely manner and that it serves as a “crippling” penalty for the Trump Organization’s decades-old financial statements, which Justice Arthur Engoron found last September were illegally inflated.
“This case involves a clear-cut violation of the statute of limitations and relevant case law,” Sauer said.
Trump was not in attendance for the proceeding.
In February, Engoron ordered Trump, who is running for a second term in the presidential election, to pay upward of $454.2 million in penalties and interest for inflating the value of his assets to gain favorable loans and insurance premiums years earlier.
At one point during the first 15 minutes of the roughly one-hour hearing, a judge asked Sauer what his strongest argument was for dismissing the parts of the case that involved more recent claims, which did not fall outside the statute of limitations.
Trump’s lawyer said there was a “critical failure of proof” during the trial, as well as in the summary judgment from last September.
James’s interest in Trump has lasted longer than her five-year tenure in office. In 2017, she campaigned for the attorney general position on Trump being a “con man” and vowed to shine a “bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings.”
During the trial, Trump brought in his own experts who testified that the business statements he gave to banks were actually “undervalued” and that there were no victims.
A lawyer for James’s office pushed back against the notion that there were no harmed parties.
“This does have harm to the public and the market. The Deutsche Bank did complain … they asked for more information, and when they didn’t get more information, they ended the relationship with the Trumps,” said a lawyer from James’s office, adding that the Trump Organization’s relationship with the bank ended around the time of James’s allegations in 2020.
One of the core matters disputed Thursday involved the application of New York Executive Law Section 63(12), which the state attorney general’s office uses to bring fraud cases. The section has been criticized for being overly broad and vague.
Enacted in 1956, the law was originally designed as a powerful tool to combat fraud against the public. However, it has been heavily criticized since its inception, particularly for its departure from traditional elements of common law fraud, such as requiring an intent to defraud.
It was not immediately clear where the panel might land once it reached a decision on the case. At times, the panel asked several pointed questions to James’s team of lawyers, while the judges appeared to listen more intently to the defense’s argument at other moments.
This civil fraud case is only one of the legal entanglements Trump faces as he campaigns for another shot at the presidency.
The former president already owes nearly $90 million in federal civil penalties for defaming a writer who accused him of sexual abuse decades ago, and he was convicted in May on 34 felony counts stemming from hush money paid to a pornography star.
Trump put down a $175 million bond following the massive civil penalties levied after the trial in Engoron’s court. At this point, Trump owes $24 million more today than he did in February due to a 9% interest rate.
Outside the courthouse near Madison Square Park, a handful of anti-Trump protesters held signs calling the former president a “grifter” while encouraging the Democratic attorney general’s case.
Within the pristine intermediate appellate courtroom, several of Trump’s star attorneys listened intently to the arguments, including recognizable faces such as Will Scharf, former Missouri attorney general candidate, and Alina Habba, one of Trump’s lawyers.
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The intermediate appellate court hearing Thursday could result in a ruling by next month, just weeks before the election between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. A RealClearPolitics polling average showed Harris with a nearly 2-point lead over Trump, with other polls suggesting an even tighter race in battleground states.
If Trump receives an unfavorable ruling on appeal, he has one more shot to appeal his hefty fine to the New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state.
