{"id":172289,"date":"2025-08-24T17:58:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T17:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/172289\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T17:58:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T17:58:12","slug":"appellate-ruling-on-trumps-500m-fine-may-not-be-last-word-on-fraud-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/172289\/","title":{"rendered":"Appellate ruling on Trump&#8217;s $500M fine may not be last word on fraud case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The state\u00a0Appellate Division wisely ruled that\u00a0the half-billion-dollar fine\u00a0levied on President Trump for allegedly \u201covervaluing\u201d his properties such as 40 Wall Street was unconstitutionally \u201cexcessive.\u201d It ought to be the last word on the matter \u2014 but it\u00a0might not be.<\/p>\n<p>The decision was a rebuke to state Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the malicious and politically motivated \u201cfraud\u201d case against Trump,\u00a0and to state Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron, who signed off on\u00a0the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/08\/21\/us-news\/trumps-massive-500m-civil-fraud-fine-in-ag-tish-james-case-thrown-out-by-ny-appeals-court\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">absurd $500 million penalty<\/a> James wanted.<\/p>\n<p>State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron has been reversed at least three times in high-profile real estate cases.  AP<\/p>\n<p>But because the Appellate decision wasn\u2019t unanimous, it faces a likely review before\u00a0the Court of Appeals, the state\u2019s highest judicial body. Its seven members, all of whom were appointed by Gov. Kathy Hochul or former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, have a majority, strongly leftist tilt.<\/p>\n<p>The Trump case, it\u2019s worth recalling, marks at least the third time Engoron was reversed in a high-profile civil case involving real estate.<\/p>\n<p>State Attorney General Letitia James brought the fraud cast against President Trump.  Gregory P. Mango<\/p>\n<p>Engoron <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2024\/05\/21\/business\/nyc-development-stuck-in-legal-limbo-is-finally-greenlit-in-blow-to-engoron\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">was unanimously shot down<\/a> by the Appellate judges last year after he blocked\u00a0a plan for a mixed-use project at 250 Water St. near the South Street Seaport. His spurious and immaterial rationale was a supposedly \u201cimpermissible\u201d relationship between the developer and the Landmarks Preservation Commission \u2014 merely an excuse to torpedo a plan he didn\u2019t like.<\/p>\n<p>The Trump Building at 40 Wall St. was a property that was allegedly overvalued.  ZUMAPRESS.com<\/p>\n<p>In early 2020, the Appellates also unanimously overturned Engoron\u2019s decision to reject plans for tall new towers on the Lower East Side even though the law clearly allowed them. He said, \u201cYou can\u2019t just do this because the zoning allows it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If there\u2019s any justice, Engoron will strike out again for good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state\u00a0Appellate Division wisely ruled that\u00a0the half-billion-dollar fine\u00a0levied on President Trump for allegedly \u201covervaluing\u201d his properties such as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":172290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,64,69,820,24980,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,4329,7747,8007,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-172289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-fraud","12":"tag-letitia-james","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-real-estate","20":"tag-realty-check","21":"tag-trials","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115085043804023306","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}