The judge who cut a broad swath through Donald J. Trump’s personal and corporate coffers on Friday, ordering him to pay a penalty in his civil fraud trial that will exceed $450 million, was both cutting and colorful in his characterization of the former president’s conduct.
The judge, Arthur F. Engoron, an unconventional jurist who presided over the trial, wrote a detailed 92-page legal decision that wove lyrical descriptions of Mr. Trump’s statements and actions into the legal analysis that supported his decision.
There are folksy aphorisms. There are biblical references to sin. There’s Bernie Madoff. And there’s even an 18th-century poet.
A former cabdriver and music teacher, the judge is an unlikely antagonist for Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly denounced him as a Democratic stooge and criticized his family and his law clerk.
Here are a few notable passages from the decision.
My Mistake? Not So Much
The English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) first declared, “To err is human, to forgive is divine.” Defendants apparently are of a different mind. After some four years of investigation and litigation, the only error (“inadvertent,” of course) that they acknowledge is the tripling of the size of the Trump Tower Penthouse, which cannot be gainsaid. Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological. They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money. The documents prove this over and over again. This is a venial sin, not a mortal sin. Defendants did not commit murder or arson. They did not rob a bank at gunpoint. Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff. Yet, defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways. Instead, they adopt a “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” posture that the evidence belies.
Trump and Corporate Misdeeds: It’s Not His First Rodeo
In considering the need for ongoing injunctive relief, this court is mindful that this action is not the first time the Trump Organization or its related entities has been found to have engaged in corporate malfeasance. Of course, the more evidence there is of defendants’ ongoing propensity to engage in fraud, the more need there is for the court to impose stricter injunctive relief. This is not defendants’ first rodeo.
Trump on the Witness Stand
Overall, Donald Trump rarely responded to the questions asked, and he frequently interjected long, irrelevant speeches on issues far beyond the scope of the trial. His refusal to answer the questions directly, or in some cases, at all, severely compromised his credibility.
What Trump Knew and What Trump Did
Donald Trump was aware of many of the key facts underpinning various material fraudulent misstatements in the SFCs: He was aware of having deeded away the right to use Mar-a-Lago as anything other than a social club, and notwithstanding, continued to value it as if it could be used as a single family residence; he was aware that the triplex apartment in which he, a real estate mogul and self-identified expert, resided for decades was not 30,000 square feet, but actually 10,996 square feet; he was aware that he did not control the Vornado partnership interest even though he represented it as “cash”; he was aware that he had permission to build only 500 private residences in Aberdeen, notwithstanding that he represented that he had permission for 2500; and he was aware that 40 Wall Street was operating at a deficit despite proclaiming that it was running a net operating income of $64 million.
As Eric Trump testified, Donald Trump sat at the top of the pyramid of the Trump Organization until 2017. Donald Trump professed to “know more about real estate than other people” and to be “more expert than anybody else.” He repeatedly falsified business records with the intent to defraud.
