New York Attorney General Letitia James submitted to the court the witness list for her case against former President Donald Trump on Sept. 27, listing all three defendants in the case as witnesses.
The former president and his adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, both executive vice presidents of the Trump Organization, were named in Ms. James’s suit, which accuses the Trump Organization of defrauding insurers and lenders. She is seeking $250 million in damages and to bar the defendants from holding executive business posts in the state of New York.
This week, a judge ruled President Trump liable for fraud in a summary judgement before the Oct. 2 nonjury trial. He ruled that the former president had inflated the value of his properties, and now the defendants have 30 days to recommend three independent reviewers to manage the dissolution of Trump Organization and related organizations.
President Trump and his sons have publicly pushed back on the ruling, claiming that the judge was biased and undervalued the properties by a wide margin.
Witness List
The list includes Ivanka Trump, who was previously named in Ms. James’s case as a defendant but later dismissed from her case after she argued she had left the organization in 2016.It also names Michael Cohen, who served as a personal lawyer for President Trump until he turned against him publicly in 2019. He is expected to be a key witness in another New York case against President Trump, in which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is charging him with alleged mishandling of financial documents, which Mr. Cohen has publicly stated his involvement in, implicating his former boss.
Other former and current Trump Organization personnel on the list are Patrick Birney, assistant vice president of financial operations; Donna Kidder, assistant controller; Mark Hawthorn, chief operating officer of the hotels division; Eric Brunnett, chief information officer; Allen Weisselberg, chief financial officer; Alan Garten, chief legal officer; Raymond Flores, former vice president of acquisitions and development; David Orowitz, former senior vice president of acquisitions and development; and Jason Greenblatt, former chief legal officer.
Some of these executives have already been deposed or submitted affidavits.
Last year, Mr. Garten, Mr. Hawthorn, and Mr. Brunnett submitted affidavits that none of their departments destroyed evidence or had any policy against preserving documents the prosecutors asked for.
The witness list also includes several people from lenders, insurers, and auditors, including Mazars, Whitley Penn, Ladder Capital, Cushman & Wakefield, and former Morgan Stanley and Zurich Insurance employees.
The rebuttal witness list includes experts in accounting and financial statement preparation, commercial real estate valuation, golf course and club valuation, and insurance underwriting.
Trump Deposition
President Trump already testified in a lengthy deposition by the attorney general’s office in April, which his attorneys released a few weeks ago. The interview lasted seven hours, during which he touted the value of several of his properties and said he couldn’t speak to specifics of certain dealings because he had stepped back from the company in recent years, leaving the day-to-day work to others.“When I bought Mar-a-Lago, I paid $8 million for it, and today I think we’re going to be bringing in people that will tell you it’s worth a billion 250, billion and a half, maybe more than that,” he said, according to the transcript. “I’ve had people say: ‘If you ever sell Mar-a-Lago, please call me. That’s not for sale.’”
He purchased the property in 1985 during a market downturn and later turned it into a private club.
Next Week
The judge acknowledged that with his partial ruling, the “contours of the case changed significantly.”Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron will preside over the trial beginning Oct. 2, and President Trump is appealing the judgment.
The judge is expected to decide the fate of several “Trump” labeled buildings in Manhattan.
Trump attorney Christopher Kise said in court that the entities that are losing their business licenses from the judge’s ruling include properties such as Trump Tower.
“Is it the court’s position that those assets are now going to be sold or just going to be managed under the direction of the (receiver)?” Mr. Kise asked, according to The Associated Press. “Because they’re owned through LLCs at least under a technical reading of the statute or the order, then those entities would be surrendering their (business) certificates even though they technically don’t have any connection to the proceedings?”
Justice Engoron said that he was “not prepared to issue a ruling” on that but that it was sure to be addressed once the trial begins, and he extended the time to submit independent reviewers to manage the dissolution of the Trump Organization from 10 to 30 days.
