Donald Trump's business empire in peril as civil fraud trial opens in New York

Donald Trump and his family business are set to stand trial in New York on Monday (Oct 2) in a civil fraud case that could deal a major blow to the former US president’s real estate empire.

Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is accused by Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James of inflating the value of his assets by billions of dollars to secure better loan and insurance terms.

Trump plans to attend the first week of trial in state court in Manhattan, according to a court filing in an unrelated case.

The trial comes a week after the judge presiding over the case found Trump liable for fraud and will largely concern the penalties he must face.

James is seeking at least US$250 million (S$341 million) in fines, a permanent ban against Trump and his sons Donald Jr and Eric from running businesses in New York and a five-year restriction on commercial real estate activities by Trump and his flagship Trump Organisation.

Trump has said the case is part of a political witchhunt.

Justice Arthur Engoron ruled last week that James had proven her fraud case against Trump, his two adult sons and 10 of his companies.

Engoron described in scathing terms how they made up valuations. That included Trump calculating the value of his apartment in Trump Tower as if it were three times its actual size.

"A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud," he said.

Engoron cancelled business certificates for companies controlling pillars of Trump’s empire — including Trump Tower and his golf clubs in New York — and said he would appoint receivers to oversee their dissolution.

The ruling covers only a handful of the roughly 500 entities in Trump's portfolio but includes some of his most valuable properties. The specifics of how that order will be implemented have not been decided, but the loss of those prised assets would be a major blow to Trump's finances. If Engoron tacks on fines and business restrictions, that damage would compound.

The trial is scheduled to run through early December. More than 150 people including Trump are listed as potential witnesses, but much of the trial will likely be a battle of experts opining on financial documents.

James alleges Trump reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten savings by "grossly" inflating the values of his assets to get better deals from lenders and insurers.

That included listing his Mar-a-Lago club and residence in Florida as being worth up to US$739 million even though deed restrictions capped it at US$28 million, James said.

The case is one of several legal headaches Trump faces as he campaigns to retake the White House in the 2024 election. None have dented his commanding lead over rivals for the Republican nomination, though they have been a financial drain.

Trump, the first sitting or former US president to be criminally charged, is under indictment in four separate cases.

He has been charged in Florida over his handling of classified documents upon leaving office, in Washington DC in his efforts to undo his loss in the 2020 presidential election, in Georgia over moves to reverse the election results in that state and in New York in hush money payments he made to a porn star.

Trump has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty in all four cases.

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