Donald Trump allegedly overestimated his net worth by more than $2.2 BILLION, according to New York’s Attorney General! Whoa!
As we’ve reported previously, AG Letitia James (pictured above, inset) and her staff have brought a massive $250 million lawsuit against the former President. They have alleged Trump committed fraud by inflating the value of and interest in his real estate portfolio to mislead investors. That suit claims Trump, his children, and their company “grossly” inflated the ex-prez’s net worth in order to cheat and mislead lenders and prospective investors.
Related: Donald Trump Returns To Twitter… To Sell T-Shirts Of His Mugshot…
On Wednesday, James submitted a new court filing claiming Trump “routinely overstated his net worth,” according to ABC News and others. The AG’s office claimed in this week’s docs that back in 2014, Trump wrote in financial statements that he had $6.7 billion in assets under management. There was just one problem with that: the state claims the Celebrity Apprentice alum overstated his assets by “more than $2.2 billion” in those docs.
TWO BILLION DOLLARS?! Oops!! Just a slight rounding error, right?!
Not holding back, the state’s filing laid out their beef with Trump’s alleged asset inflation:
“Based on the undisputed evidence, no trial is required for the Court to determine that Defendants presented grossly and materially inflated asset values in the SFCs and then used those SFCs repeatedly in business transactions to defraud banks and insurers.”
The docs lay out many examples of this, per ABC News, but few are more egregious than the controversial ex-leader’s flagship property: the Mar-a-Lago estate down in Florida. That property, the AG notes, was listed in one Trump filing “as if it could be sold as a private single family residence for amounts ranging between $347 million to $739 million.”
That’s a huge range on those numbers, of course. But it’s not even close to how Palm Beach County assessed it! James’ filing notes the Florida county assessed Mar-a-Lago as having a market value of between $18 million and $27.6 million “based on its restricted use as a social club.” In other words, it couldn’t be sold as a family home even if Trump wanted to — and while claiming he could, the former President allegedly over-inflated the value of the asset more than 20 times! Egregious!!!
Related: Trump & 18 Others Charged With Election-Stealing Conspiracy In Georgia!
Furthermore, the filing notes Trump allegedly tacked on anywhere from 15-30% in value as a “brand premium” on many of the golf clubs and other buildings that he owns. Because of course he did, right? On the one hand, so much of what we know about Trump tells us his entire sense of self-worth is tied up in the money he supposedly has! And now, well, we’re finding out he doesn’t have nearly as much of it as he claims!!
But also, of course, this isn’t just about vanity. When you tell investors you’re worth more, you can scam them out of more money — then tell the government the real value (or even lower) and pay less in taxes. All things Trump and his companies have been accused of. Yeesh.
This civil fraud trial is scheduled to start in October in New York, BTW. The man has a busy court schedule coming up over the next few months! Reactions, Perezcious readers?!
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