New York appeals court judge on Friday rejected Donald Trump’s attempt to stop the ongoing $250 million civil fraud trial, but temporarily halted the process of breaking up the former president’s businesses.
Associate Justice Peter Moulton issued the ruling after a brief hearing Friday afternoon. It leaves Trump’s empire untouched for at least another month and perhaps offers the former president and his family a glimmer of hope.
Trump sought to put Judge Arthur Engoron’s surprise summary judgment order last week that he is liable for fraud and must cancel business certificates for many of his business entities on hold pending further appeal.
During the hearing, Moulton speculated that such a broad interpretation of Engoron’s ruling could mean LLCs holding the private homes of Trump and the other defendants could be at risk of being sold.
So fucking what? If they were used to enrich a criminal enterprise then they should be auctioned off.
100%
The homestead exemption protects people from being forced to sell their home to satisfy a debt (in many states it also exempts a portion of the home’s value from property taxes), but if an LLC owns it and they don’t, those same protections don’t apply. If, instead of Trump putting his home in his own name, he assigned it to an LLC, he did so to get some sort of a benefit. Potentially losing his home is the cost he of that decision.
Caveat: if the LLC was renting the property to Trump and they had an explicit lease with a definite term, then some protections might apply.
Sources:
One interesting twist that I’ve heard is that Trump put his naming rights in the LLC also. It’s possible that the rights to the Trump name get sold to some bidder.
If so, who wants to get together and buy the rights? I’m thinking we can make Trump Brand Liberal Trading cards (celebrating liberal icons who made great strides in civil rights, worker protections, etc). Then there could be Trump Brand Clothing - designed for LGBTQ people. And so on. With 0% of proceeds going to Donald What’s-His-Name. I imagine right wing heads would explode from having to oppose Trump branded items.
Wow imagine suffering consequences to your actions like 99% of America.
Doesn’t this just give Trump extra time to hold a fire sale? Like, if he knows that in a month he’s going to lose everything, what’s preventing him from just liquidating it all and just shoving it all into offshore accounts?
Huge paper trail and would be a fast way to jail. Even for Trump. As much as he has influence, it is hard to hide money like that. Also he has assets throughout the US. Is he going to sell it all and put it into offshore accounts. Because if he illegally sends New York assets away, they will go for anything he holds.
Secondly do people here really think money is useful on its own? To have the lifestyle in the US or abroad, having all those funds locked into some offshore bank is rather useless. Unless he wants to move to said location. Certainly would not be conductive to his jet setting lifestyle he so wants to portray.
