AP’s review of nearly 150 cases since New York’s “repeated fraud” statute was passed showed that nearly every previous time a company was taken away, victims and losses were key factors.

"Within days, Donald Trump could potentially have his sprawling real estate business empire ordered ‘dissolved’ for repeated misrepresentations on financial statements to lenders, adding him to a short list of scam marketers, con artists and others who have been hit with the ultimate punishment for violating New York’s powerful anti-fraud law,” the AP reports.

“An Associated Press analysis of nearly 70 years of civil cases under the law showed that such a penalty has only been imposed a dozen previous times, and Trump’s case stands apart in a significant way: It’s the only big business found that was threatened with a shutdown without a showing of obvious victims and major losses.”

  • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    9 months ago

    The AG prosecuting this doesn’t even want his businesses dissolved:

    For her part, New York Attorney General Letitia James has asked that Trump be banned from doing business in New York and pay $370 million, what she estimates is saved interest and other “ill-gotten gains.” But she never asked for a property sale and may not even want one. Said one of her lawyers, Kevin Wallace, in his closing argument, “I don’t think we are looking for anything that would cause the liquidation of business.”

    $370 million is a hefty sum, though. And the fact that the AG admits that it would not cause a 'dissolution of the business" means that she thinks the penalty can be extracted without liquidating everything… But Trump wouldn’t be allowed to be in charge of whatever’s left.

    Good luck enforcing that last part, though. Whoever ends up taking over the business will probably need to get a new phone number, and make sure Trump never finds out what it is.