A New York judge delivered a significant defeat in court Friday for Donald Trump, finding the former president liable in a civil fraud trial.
Judge Arthur Engoron imposed a $364 million penalty for what he ruled was a yearslong scheme to dupe banks and others with financial statements that inflated the former president’s wealth.
The ruling came after a 2½-month trial. Engoron concluded that Trump and his co-defendants “failed to accept responsibility” for their actions and that expert witnesses who testified for the defense “simply denied reality.”
The judge called the civil fraud at the heart of the trial a “venial sin, not a mortal sin.” But Engoron said the refusal by Trump and his associates to admit wrongdoing suggested they would continue if not constrained.
“Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological,” added Engoron, a Democrat.
The former president is also barred from doing business in New York for three years.
However, the judge backed away from an earlier ruling that would have dissolved the former president’s companies.
Trump attorney Alina Habba called the verdict “manifest injustice” and “the culmination of a multi-year, politically fueled witch hunt.”
Trump’s lawyers had said even before the verdict that they
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