Trump fined Ksh51B, banned from running businesses in New York for 3 years
By Story Agencies, February 17, 2024Former US president Donald Trump has been fined $354.9m (over Ksh51 billion) after a civil fraud trial in New York.
The judge also banned Trump from running businesses in New York for three years. His sons, Eric and Donald Jr, received similar bans for two years.
Trump and the Trump Organisation cannot apply for loans from any New York financial institution for three years.
Judge Arthur Engoron had already ruled in an earlier judgment that the former president inflated his wealth on financial statements given to banks, insurers and other institutions to make deals and secure loans.
Following the fine, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to vent his anger, describing the decision as a “complete and total sham” and accused the judge and prosecutors of being “deluded, biased and crooked”.
He also claimed the judgment was “illegal” and “unAmerican”.
Later, in a statement made outside his Mar-a-Lago estate, he claimed his company’s accounts were “great” and that he was the victim of a political “witch hunt”, which he blamed on President Joe Biden.
“It is a witch hunt against his [Biden’s] political opponent the likes of which our country has never been seen before,” he said.
“You see it in Third World countries, but you don’t see it here.
“If I weren’t running [for president] none of this stuff would ever happen – none of these lawsuits would have happened – I would have had a nice life. But I enjoy this life for a different reason.”
He also said he planned to appeal.
Alina Habba, his lawyer, said after the hearing that the ruling was a “manifest injustice… plain and simple”.
She said in a statement: “It is the culmination of a multi-year, politically fuelled witch hunt that was designed to ‘take down Donald Trump,’ before Letitia James ever stepped foot into the attorney general’s office.”
New York attorney general Letitia James sought $370m (£294m) and a ban on Trump and other defendants from doing business in the state in the civil fraud case.
Such a huge penalty could leave Trump’s real estate empire in tatters – an image that helped lead him to fame and the White House in 2016.