Former President Donald Trump owes an additional $87,502 in post-judgment interest every day until he pays the $354 million fine ordered by Judge Arthur Engoron in his civil fraud case, according to ABC News’ calculations based on the judge’s lengthy ruling in the case.
Judge Engoron on Friday fined Trump $354 million plus approximately $100 million in pre-judgment interest in the civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, after he found that Trump and his adult sons had inflated Trump’s net worth in order to get more favorable loan terms. The former president has denied all wrongdoing and has said he will appeal.
Engoron ordered Trump to pay pre-judgment interest on each ill-gotten gain – with interest accruing based on the date of each transaction – as well as a 9% post-judgment interest rate once the court enters the judgment in the case.
The purported “fair value” of a range of assets supporting Trump’s net worth.
Was the bank not able to do their own assessment of the value of the property? Was the bank upset with the outcome?
They could have and no they weren’t.
However, as you well know, that’s not how fraud works. They lied in order to obtain a benefit. That’s fraud. They got caught, they’re being penalised.
The judgement does kind of address your attitude:
Timely and total repayment of loans does not extinguish the harm that false statements inflict on the marketplace. Indeed, the common excuse that “everybody does it” is all the more reason to strive for honesty and transparency and to be vigilant in enforcing the rules. Here, despite the false financial statements, it is undisputed that defendants have made all required payments on time; the next group of lenders to receive bogus statements might not be so lucky. New York means business in combating business fraud.
You’re an engineer right? Imagine building a bridge with degraded steel, then on being discovered your defence is simply that the bridge hasn’t fallen down and everyone using it has been happy enough.
As you can imagine, enforcing standards serves bridge users everywhere.
