Donald Trump’s exaggeration of the value of his Midtown penthouse — which he tripled the size of in financial filings — was merely the type of “error” that is “inevitable” in accounting, an NYU professor claimed Thursday at the former president’s civil fraud trial.
Eli Bartov — a professor of accounting at New York University called by Trump’s side — said that when the former president inflated his Trump Tower triplex’s square footage threefold starting in 2011 on yearly statements of financial condition it was just an “error in calculation.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James — who is prosecuting the $250 million civil fraud case against Trump — claims that from 2011 to 2015 the real estate tycoon claimed the pad was 30,000 square feet rather than it’s true size of 11,000 square feet, resulting in a valuation increase of 400%.
In 2015, Trump valued the property at $327 million based off of the false size.
The frontrunner GOP presidential candidate looked on intently during Bartov’s favorable testimony, as the professor said: “Errors like that are not unusual,” and added that in accounting they are actually “inevitable.”
“Fraud in accounting is an intentional misstatement rather than an accidental mistake,” Bartov said, adding that the AG’s case has “no merit.”
Bartov said “value” in the real estate world is inherently a subjective process.
“If somebody tells you that an evaluation is objective, this person has to have their head examined,” he said.
When the professor was shown Trump’s 2011 statement of financial condition and asked what the numbers on the form meant, Bartov replied, “Nothing!”
“My main finding is there is no evidence whatsoever for any accounting fraud,” he said.
On a morning break, Trump, 77, told reporters that Bartov’s testimony was a win for his case.
“This is a highly respected man,” Trump said. “I don’t know him. He’s an expert witness and he found no fraud whatsoever, he found no accounting fraud whatsoever.”
James sued Trump, his two eldest sons, the family real estate company and others last year claiming from 2011 to 2021 Trump lied on his annual statements of financial conditions, inflating his worth by billions to get better loan and insurance terms.
But Trump’s team has argued that, if it, it was a victimless crime since he always paid his loans back on time and still made the banks a lot of money.