He is rich, very rich, Donald Trump, but the colossal fine imposed on him by the New York courts on Friday will hurt him very badly: $355 million for inflating the value of the assets of the Trump Organization, his empire, in the 2010s. With interest, the sanction exceeds 450 million dollars.
Additionally, he is prohibited from operating any business, including his own, in New York State for three years.
“Today, Donald Trump must finally be held accountable for his lies, cheating and staggering fraud,” said prosecutor Letitia James.
Because no matter how big, rich or powerful you think you are, no one is above the law.
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It is another bitter defeat for the New York billionaire, already sentenced last month to pay more than 80 million dollars for defamation to journalist E. Jean Carroll.
Friday's verdict is also a humiliating slap in the face for the billionaire who for years played so well on his image as a brilliant businessman sitting on his pile of gold.
Thanks to the overvaluation of the assets of his empire, from 812 million to more than two billion depending on the year, Trump had managed to obtain favorable treatment from banks and insurance companies, an illegal practice, the prosecutor had accused.
Judge Arthur Engoron agreed with his opinion.
“The accused did not commit murder or arson,” he conceded, “they did not rob a bank at gunpoint.
» But he castigated “the total absence of contrition and remorse of the Trumps”, which “borders on pathology”.
He will have to immobilize part of his fortune
At Mar-a-Lago, his superb residence in Florida, the former President of the United States once again denounced the witch hunt of which he claims to be a victim: “There were no victims, no damages or complaints.
There were only satisfied banks and insurance companies who made a lot of money.
» The Mar-a-Lago property also appeared in the judgment: it is valued at 18 million dollars, but the Trump father and son estimated its value at 25 times more, or half a billion!
Donald Trump, who also faces justice in four other criminal cases, is not on the street.
His total fortune (hotels, buildings, golf courses, media empire, rights to the Trump brand, etc.) exceeds 2.5 billion, according to Forbes, the business magazine.
But the former president testified under oath at the start of his trial that he had about $400 million in cash and liquid assets, which would be insufficient to pay his fines.
He has already appealed but will have to immobilize part of his fortune while the appeal is studied by the courts, and probably sell certain assets.
Read also Surrounded by the trials but favorite in the polls… Donald Trump still affected, not (at all) sunk
At the end of 2023, he was ousted from the legendary Top 400 American fortunes.
The fault lies with a weakened real estate sector and even more so, with the setbacks of Truth Social, its social network which is accumulating losses and whose value collapsed in 2023, going from 730 million dollars to less than 100 million.
“Kicked” from the ranking?
Symbolic, certainly, but which displays it poorly.
For the economic daily Wall Street Journal, which argues “that there was no real financial victim”, the judgment given on Friday “is like using a Hellfire missile to destroy a shoplifter”.
This is surely also what the majority of his supporters think, supporters whom Trump immediately appealed to, as always when the law catches up with him.
His teams send up to three or four emails per day to his supposed supporters via different communication channels.
The New York Times calculated that even before this appeal, they had already given him more than 60 million for his legal troubles, out of the 600 million collected since the start of the campaign.
We are far from the total of this new final fine, but it is a start...