A New York appeals court is set to hear oral arguments on Sept. 26 over whether Judge Arthur Engoron erred in former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial, which resulted in a penalty of $489 million.
Trump has appealed the decision on multiple grounds, including that Engoron’s actions violated the constitution. New York Attorney General Letitia James is defending Engoron’s decision and maintains that Trump defrauded businesses by inflating the value of his assets.
The hearing will occur before a panel of five judges within the Appellate Division, First Judicial Department in Manhattan. It’s expected to be livestreamed and each side has been allotted 15 minutes for argument.
D. John Sauer is expected to argue for Trump. He is the attorney who represented Trump in his immunity appeal that went through the D.C. circuit and Supreme Court. On the other side is Judith Vale, who serves as New York’s deputy solicitor general.
Trump, who posted a $175 million bond in April, is slated to pay the full amount as well as interest, which is accruing $114,553 per day. A decision could come before the 2024 presidential election, but the legal battles could extend with further appeals up to the New York Court of Appeals or U.S. Supreme Court.
The decision will have consequences for Trump, two of his sons, and his former chief financial officer—all of whom were named as defendants.
Beyond Trump and his associates, the outcome could have implications for New York’s business community.
The Arguments
In July, Trump filed a brief alleging that Engoron erred in several ways, including that he misconstrued what constituted fraud and failed to follow the appeals court’s direction on the statute of limitations.Moreover, he said, the penalty imposed violated the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits excessive fines.
“The monetary award is a punitive penalty imposed for retributive and deterrent purposes,” his July brief read. “It is both grossly disproportional under the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause and grossly excessive under the Due Process Clauses.”
Argument on Sept. 27 will likely include discussion of the actual claims Trump made to insurers and others about his assets. Trump has denied engaging in fraud.
“Every representation made to the lenders was accompanied by clear disclaimers that lenders may reach a different result and should do their own diligence—and indeed, the lenders did just that,” his brief read. “There were no victims and no losses.”
It said that Engoron’s “liability determinations are supported by overwhelming evidence that ... defendants used a variety of deceptive strategies to vastly misrepresent the values of Mr. Trump’s assets.”
Trump, his company, and top executives including sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. “created and used financial statements rife with blatant misrepresentations and omissions to maintain loans worth more than half a billion dollars and to generate over $360 million in ill-gotten profits,” Assistant Solicitor General Daniel Magy wrote in a court filing.
The state has argued that Trump inflated his net worth on the financial statements by as much as $800 million to $2.2 billion a year.
Some of the arguments might also touch on James’s authority, which Trump has said was exceeded by her application of the state’s civil fraud statute to his activity. James’ office maintained that she was “vindicating the State’s sovereign interests in combatting fraud and enforcing its laws to protect an honest marketplace.”
Trump, meanwhile, argued that James “used the statute in a way never seen before” and that it “does not apply to this victimless transaction.”
