In a statement to Courthouse News, Trump's lawyer Chris Kise said Engoron's ruling "represents a complete failure to address the legal elements of the claims to be decided." “They are not defendants’ statements, and they certainly do not shield defendants from liability if anything, they expose defendants to liability.” “They are not disclaimers at all,” Engoron said of the clauses. Monday’s ruling shows he hasn’t since been convinced otherwise. In Trump’s own testimony, he called the disclaimers the “worthless statement clause,” implying that banks and insurers barely relied on his financial statements at all.Įngoron didn’t find that argument compelling back in September when he issued his summary judgment. The judge also once again refuted Trump’s argument that the presence of a disclaimer clause in his statements of financial condition absolve him of any guilt when it comes to the documents. Valuing occupied residences as if vacant, valuing restricted land as if unrestricted, valuing an apartment as if it were triple its actual size … are not subjective differences of opinion, they are misstatements at best and fraud at worst.” “Valuations, as elucidated ad nauseam in this trial, can be based on different criteria analyzed in different ways,” Engoron wrote. “This court hereby denies that motion and, furthermore, denies all the prior motions that the court previously took under advisement,” Engoron wrote.Įngoron reiterated some of the same key points he made in his summary judgment from months ago, which Trump’s lawyers routinely challenged throughout the trial by trying to prove that Trump’s property valuations weren’t necessarily incorrect. There were still several that the judge had held “under advisement” until Monday, when he denied all outstanding requests with one fell swoop. Given the frequency at which Trump’s lawyers kept asking for directed verdicts, Engoron hadn’t yet denied all of them. “The first such time was at the close of plaintiff’s case … The court took that motion, and most of the others, under advisement. “At least five times during the recently concluded ten-and-a-half-week trial of this matter, defendants moved for a directed verdict,” Engoron wrote. Trump’s attorneys asked for a directed verdict one final time as trial ended last week it’s a move that’s become so common for the defense attorneys, even Engoron appears to have lost count of their requests. By doggedly attempting to justify every misstatement, Professor Bartov lost all credibility.”Įngoron’s comments about Bartov were part of a larger response that ultimately denied Trump’s latest effort to toss the case via directed verdict. “As this court discussed in excruciating detail in its Septemsummary judgment decision, the statements of financial condition contained numerous obvious errors. “His overarching point was that the subject statements of financial condition were accurate in every respect,” Engoron wrote. The judge continued that Bartov’s testimony completely contradicted the findings of the court’s summary judgment from months prior, which ruled that Trump had fraudulently inflated the value of his assets and overall net worth on his statements of financial condition. “Bartov is a tenured professor, but all that his testimony proves is that for a million or so dollars, some experts will say whatever you want them to say,” Engoron wrote.ĭuring his testimony, Bartov claimed to have been paid approximately $877,500 in total for his work as a defense expert. That changed on Monday, when he wrote that Bartov “lost all credibility” by testifying in this case. Judge Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing the bench trial against the former president, hadn’t previously commented on Bartov’s testimony - despite already ruling that Trump and his co-defendants had committed fraud. Bartov, an accounting professor at New York University, told the court earlier this month that there was “no merit” to the attorney general’s claims that Trump committed fraud on his yearly financial documents. MANHATTAN (CN) - The judge in Donald Trump’s Manhattan civil fraud trial filed a scathing order on Monday that blasted the former president’s star expert witness Eli Bartov.
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