A New York appeals court on Thursday dismissed a $500 million civil fraud penalty against President Donald Trump and his companies for routinely over-valuing their properties in financial statements.
Some judges of the state Appellate Division's First Department agreed that Trump and his companies had engaged in fraud, but agreed with their colleagues that the award was an "excessive fine."
"[W]hile harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half billion-dollar award to the State," two of the judges wrote.
Trump touted the judgment's dismissal in remarks to law enforcement officers in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.
"I had a victory today. You know, they stole $550 million from me with a fake case, and it was overturned. They said this was a fake case,” Trump told the group of officers in Washington, D.C.
“It’s a terrible thing, but it’s a nice victory, you know? I mean, it’s not bad, you know, we all have, we all have our limits, but this was a terrible thing, that it was a witch hunt. And I’ve had more witch hunts than any human being,” he added.
Trump had also praised the ruling as a "total victory" in a post on Truth Social earlier in the day.
"I greatly respect the fact that the Court had the Courage to throw out this unlawful and disgraceful Decision that was hurting Business all throughout New York State," he wrote.
"Every single Dollar was thrown out, even the penalties imposed on us by the Corrupt Judge, one of the most overturned in History, Arthur Engoron," Trump added in his lengthy post. He also called New York Attorney General Letitia James, who'd brought the case against him, a "political hack" and "Incompetent."
Eric Trump celebrated the ruling in a phone interview with NBC News.
"This is the biggest victory in the world," said the president’s son, who’s the executive vice president of the Trump Organization. "We always knew this was going to happen. The case is totally won, and it’s a big day for us.”
His brother, fellow executive vice president Donald Trump Jr., called the ruling a "massive win" in a post on X.
"It was always a witch hunt, election interference, and a total miscarriage of justice … and even a left leaning NY appeals court agrees!" he wrote.
James said in a statement that ruling "affirmed the well-supported finding of the trial court: Donald Trump, his company, and two of his children are liable for fraud."
"It should not be lost to history: yet another court has ruled that the president violated the law, and that our case has merit," the statement said. James said she plans to appeal the decision to the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals.
The 323-page ruling by the midlevel appeals court contains three separate opinions from the five judges on the panel and shows they were deeply divided. Two of the judges were in favor of upholding the fraud finding but dismissing the financial penalties, two of the judges were in favor of ordering a new trial, and one of the judges would have dismissed the case.
In a highly unusual move, the two judges who had wanted a new trial, John Higgitt and Llinét Rosado, signed off on the opinion by the judges who upheld the fraud finding in order to end the stalemate on the court and allow the parties to take their case to the Court of Appeals.
"Under the truly extraordinary circumstances here, where none of the writings enjoys the support of a majority, we are moved to take this action to permit this panel to arrive at a decision," Higgitt wrote, explaining why he and Rosado effectively sided with Justices Peter Moulton and Dianne Renwick even though they disagreed with much of their decision.
“[A] remarkable situation has necessitated a remarkable solution,” Higgitt wrote.
The appeal had been fully submitted for almost a year.
Some members of the panel had expressed concern with the size of the judgment at a hearing on the appeal last September, with one calling it “troubling.”
Trump’s attorneys had contended that he shouldn’t have to pay anything in damages and that the businesses he was accused of defrauding were “delighted with these transactions” and “benefited enormously” from them. They faulted the judge for not relying on their client's expertise in valuing properties and alleged that some of the discrepancies the judge pointed to were outside of the statute of limitations for the case and should not be used.
Engoron handed down his judgment against Trump in early 2024 after finding he and his companies had engaged in “repeated and persistent fraud.”
The award came after a monthslong trial that included testimony from the then-former and now current president.
The case centered on allegations from James’ office that Trump lied to banks and insurers by both overvaluing and undervaluing his assets when it was to his benefit, exaggerating his net worth to the tune of billions of dollars.
The scheme enabled Trump to obtain bank loans and insurance policies at rates that he otherwise wouldn’t have been entitled to, and as a result he “reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains,” James' office said.
Trump maintained his financial statements were conservative, and he repeatedly alleged that the Democratic attorney general's case was politically motivated.
Engoron summarized Trump’s defense as claiming that “the documents do not say what they say; that there is no such thing as ‘objective’ value; and that, essentially, the Court should not believe its own eyes.”
He also chided Trump and his companies for not taking any responsibility for their actions.
“Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological," Engoron wrote in his decision on the case. "They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money. The documents prove this over and over again. This is a venial sin, not a mortal sin. Defendants did not commit murder or arson. They did not rob a bank at gunpoint. Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff. Yet, defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways.”
The award was initially entered as a $464 million judgment, but it has continued to grow in the months since because of interest. Trump was responsible for the vast majority of the judgment, and the amount he’d been ordered to pay had been increasing by over $100,000 a day.
By mid-June, Trump was on the hook for $507 million while his co-defendants owed over $11 million.
To secure the judgment while he appealed, Trump had been expected to have to post a bond for about $550 million — the full amount of the judgment plus interest. Trump’s attorneys argued that coming up with that much cash was a “practical impossibility,” and the Appellate Division reduced the size of the bond to $175 million. Trump posted the bond in March of last year.
Trump is also appealing two other judgments totaling about $90 million after writer E. Jean Carroll successfully sued him for allegedly sexually abusing and defaming her. Trump has denied the allegations in both of her lawsuits.
"That Case, also on Appeal, should also never have been brought," Trump wrote in his social media post on the fraud ruling. He added that the judge in the Carroll case "should be admonished for Abuse."
