Donald Trump's Billion-Dollar Fraud Trial Will Run for 3 Months: US Judge

New York: A civil trial over allegations that Donald Trump and his sons fraudulently overvalued the net worth of company assets by billions of dollars is scheduled to last three months, a New York judge said Friday.

Judge Arthur Engoron had already determined the non-jury trial would begin October 2 in Manhattan. Preliminary headings were set for the end of September. In an order made public on Friday, the judge specified that the trial would run until December 22.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James on Friday again sent the state Supreme Court hundreds of pages of documents in the $250 million civil case against Trump and his two eldest sons, Donald Jr and Eric.

James claimed Trump and some of his associates submitted "grossly inflated" numbers to banks and insurers each year between 2011 and 2021 "to secure and maintain loans and insurance on more favorable terms." 

The scheme resulted in "hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten savings and profits," the documents allege. 

Trump and his children also stand accused of deflating the value of certain Trump Organization assets -- including golf clubs, luxury hotels and other properties -- to reduce taxes.

In a new estimate released Friday by James' office, the overvaluation of Trump's assets was estimated at between $1.9 billion and $3.6 billion per year.

Trump has in the past denounced the case as a "witch hunt," calling James, who is a Democrat and Black, "racist."

In January, the Trump Organization was fined $1.6 million by a New York judge in a criminal tax and financial fraud case.

Trump, the frontrunner to be the Republican Party candidate in the 2024 White House race, is also facing four criminal trials for actions allegedly taken before, during and after his presidency.

Original News : World News | Agence France-Presse

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