Donald Trump could be within days of having his real estate empire ordered "dissolved" by a judge in a rarely used penalty for repeatedly lying on financial statements.
Nearly 70 years of cases under New York's powerful anti-fraud law shows that penalty has been imposed only a dozen previous times for scam marketers and con artists, and the former president's family business is the only large business threatened with getting shut down without showing obvious victims or major losses, according to an analysis by the Associated Press.
“This is a basically a death penalty for a business,” said Columbia University law professor Eric Talley. “Is he getting his just desserts because of the fraud, or because people don’t like him?”
The review of nearly 150 cases since New York passed its "repeated fraud" statute in 1956 showed victims and losses were key facts in previous corporate death penalties, but Trump's lenders never complained about his manipulation of valuation to obtain better loans, and it's unclear how much they lost.
“Those who want to see Donald Trump suffer by any means necessary, risk ignoring the very commitment to a rule of law that they accuse him of flouting," said University of Michigan law professor William Thomas.
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State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron already issued a summary judgment before the start of the trial finding that Trump had committed fraud and should have his state business certificates revoked and the control of his companies stripped and handed over to a receiver to manage their "dissolution."
Engoron said he would issue a ruling by Wednesday to decide on the cash penalty and business ban, and he will make clear whether the "dissolution" means his buildings would be sold off.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking a lifetime ban for Trump doing business in New York and $370 million in penalties, but she has never asked to have his properties sold off and instead suggested the appointment of an independent monitor to manage the former president's operation for five years before the court decided what to do with him.
