The New York Appeals court just threw out President Trump’s massive civil fraud penalty that came from the corrupt lawsuit by Letitia James over Trump inflating his net worth.
The corrupt Judge Arthur Engoron issued Trump a $527 million dollar penalty and now it’s now removed.
Here’s the news via the AP:
An appeals court has thrown out the massive civil fraud penalty against President Donald Trump, ruling Thursday in New York state’s lawsuit accusing him of exaggerating his wealth.
The decision came seven months after the Republican returned to the White House. A panel of five judges in New York’s mid-level Appellate Division said the verdict, which stood to cost Trump over $515 million and rock his real estate empire, was “excessive.”
After finding that Trump engaged in fraud by flagrantly padding financial statements that went to lenders and insurers, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered him last year to pay $355 million in penalties. With interest, the sum has topped $515 million.
The total — combined with penalties levied on some other Trump Organization executives, including Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr. — now exceeds $527 million, with interest.
“While the injunctive relief ordered by the court is well crafted to curb defendants’ business culture, the court’s disgorgement order, which directs that defendants pay nearly half a billion dollars to the State of New York, is an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution,” Judges Dianne T. Renwick and Peter H. Moulton wrote in one of several opinions shaping the appeals court’s ruling.
The court, which was split on the merits of the lawsuit and the lower court’s fraud finding, dismissed the penalty Engoron imposed in its entirety while also leaving a pathway for further appeals to the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals.
The appeals court, the Appellate Division of the state’s trial court, took an unusually long time to rule, weighing Trump’s appeal for nearly 11 months after oral arguments last fall. Normally, appeals are decided in a matter of weeks or a few months.