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I ran across a couple of different references that shed some different light on the summary judgement issued by Judge Engoron in the New York State civil case regarding systemic business fraud on the part of The Trump Organization. I then watched an insightful video by Michael Popok who filled in some of the blanks.

The first impression I got was that the judge was put in the position of making the ruling by either a request for summary judgement from the State or from Trump. A request from the State would imply they thought the facts were so obvious it wasn't worth the public's money holding a jury trial to confirm that the color black is indeed black, etc. A request from Trump would reflect his legal team's disconnect from reality and fantasy that they could just claim the facts were so much in THEIR favor that they could convince a judge to drop the case on their say-so.

That's actually not what drove it. According to procedures of civil cases in New York State, when the state brings a civil case against a defendent, the STATE can provide its preference for a jury or bench trial with its original filing. In this case, the state requested a bench trial. If the defendent in the case OBJECTS to the trial format requested by the STATE, the defendent has fifteen days to file paperwork stating their preference for the trial format. Fifteen days. You don't get to see the case start going through the steps, see which judge is selected, see how favorably they react to your pre-trial motions. Just consider the charges, consider the facts and possible outcomes and if you don't like the trial format selected by the prosecution, get your motion filed within fifteen days.

Trump's lawyer handling the case at inception was Alina Habba, noted legal scholar in the field of parking garage law and frequent "analyst" on One America News. Is there anything she can't do? Apparently, getting a motion to OBJECT to the state request for a bench trial and request a JURY trial isn't one of her many talents. She didn't get the paperwork filed on time so the trial proceeds as requested by the state.

When a bench trial format is chosen, the judge can still request a jury for specific decisions in a penalty phase, etc. but decisions about the events involved with the charges are solely those of the judge.

Two other points noted by Michael Popok...

Trump and his attorneys consistently make the claim that none of the lenders relying on his false paperwork and inflated valuations on loan applications actually suffered financial LOSSES on the deals. No loss, no crime, right?

Wrong. When you obtain loans based on false representations of your financial assets and leverage those loans to arrange other deals to produce gains, those GAINS are ill-gotten and are as much of a crime as someone else's LOSS. And of course, it wasn't just banks shortchanged by the manipulated evaluations, since they were also used to minimize tax payments to the city and state (and likely federal) government.

Even more ironically... Some of the very powers the New York State Attorney General has at her disposal to disgorge assets from someone found guilty of large-scale financial fraud stem from prior case law that should be very familiar to Trump. They stem from a case involving another Trump entity (Trump University, I think...) filed in 2013 by prior New York AG Eric Schneiderman. Trump lost the case but an appellate court asked that the state more explicitly define the AG's powers in this section of state law. Those explicitly granted powers could have been used by Leticia James to drastically shorten this case and go nearly directly to a request for summary judgement. Instead, she used the more traditional flow to ensure Trump had time for full discovery and a full trial.


WTH

Thanks, that was interesting. I was amazed a summary judgment was made in the case. And it's a bench trial? How fortunate.

Eric Trump is out claiming the judge made a determination that Mar a Lago was worth $18 million, and it's worth at least a billion (per Eric). My understanding is the $18 million is the tax assessor back in 2010, not a current valuation. On one of his apartments they tripled the square footage for the assessment. But a summary judgment means there is no dispute of material fact, so these facts weren't disputed. Hard to believe there was no dispute, but it sounded like they made presentations and arguments to the judge, they were just so poor there was no doubt. Maybe Albaby can enlighten us on this process and how it worked.

The near- billion dollar assessment of Mar-a-lago in large part assumes what it COULD be worth if parceled out into individual lots and converted into single family mansions. Of course, it CANNOT be parceled out like that because the zoning of the existing plot prohibits that in perpetuity. That seems to be one of the factors that aggravated the judge so much because that very issue seems to have come up before. That, coupled with "It doesn't matter what I evaluate a property at cuz I can always get a Saudi to offer whatever amount I say."

Trump's inflation of the square footage of his penthouse apartment within Trump Tower ALONE should have been enough to seal this case. His apartment occupies ONE FLOOR of the building. The OUTSIDE DIMENSIONS of the building equate to about 10,000 square feet. A single floor apartment in a 10,000 square foot footprint building cannot comprise 31,000 square feet. One would think any bank seeing such claims about the apartment as collateral could have verified that with Wilipedia without leaving their chair.

I'm glad Trump is finally seeing justice on this but it never should have reached this point. This has been Trump's modus operandi for 40 plus years and journalists like David Cay Johnson have been covering this for at least 15 years. The lies were so blatant that any audit would have turned up dozens of charges in a week or two of effort.


WTH

But a summary judgment means there is no dispute of material fact, so these facts weren't disputed. Hard to believe there was no dispute, but it sounded like they made presentations and arguments to the judge, they were just so poor there was no doubt. Maybe Albaby can enlighten us on this process and how it worked.

Sure.

In both a motion for summary judgment and the actual trial, the outcome depends on the evidence that the parties have to support their points. That's what makes them different than a motion to dismiss or a motion for judgment on the pleadings, where all that's at issue is what the parties claim is true. Here, the judge is looking at the evidence to support the various assertions.

In a motion for summary judgment, though, the judge is not weighing the strength of such evidence - just whether enough evidence exists on both sides of a relevant point to constitute a genuine dispute. So if Party A has evidence to prove X is true, and Party B has evidence to prove X is not true, the role of the judge is not to weigh their evidence against each other to see who establishes that point under the evidentiary standard. That happens at the trial. The judge's role is to see whether the parties have any evidence that's potentially sufficient to prove up their side of the disputed issue.

So for example, if one party has a witness that will testify that X happened, and the other party has a witness that will testify that something other than X happened, the trial is where the finder of fact (jury, or judge in a bench trial) will hear both their direct testimony and their responses under cross examination, weigh the credibility of the witnesses and any impeaching or supporting evidence, and make a determination about whether X has been proven or not. At summary judgment, the judge is just reviewing their depositions and what the attorneys say will be the content of their testimony (more or less) - not weighing the credibility or sufficiency of that testimony. If one party has a witness to say that X happened, and the other party has no material evidence whatsoever to contest that X happened, there's no point in making the witness come in and testify at trial.

WTH: The near- billion dollar assessment of Mar-a-lago in large part assumes what it COULD be worth if parceled out into individual lots and converted into single family mansions. Of course, it CANNOT be parceled out like that because the zoning of the existing plot prohibits that in perpetuity. That seems to be one of the factors that aggravated the judge so much because that very issue seems to have come up before.

Wow, that explains a lot. When I looked into Estate Taxes I discovered one of the tricks was to put restrictive clauses on your property that would reduce the value. You could reduce a business from 30 million to 3 million if done properly. And they had special methods of evaluating property. All organized to keep Estate Tax attorneys well paid. So it isn't hard to convince me that restrictions on an asset could lower the value of a property sginificantly.

WTH: That, coupled with "It doesn't matter what I evaluate a property at cuz I can always get a Saudi to offer whatever amount I say."

I marveled at that one. Several columnists have suggested that comment should be looked into. :)

WTH: Trump's inflation of the square footage of his penthouse apartment within Trump Tower ALONE should have been enough to seal this case. His apartment occupies ONE FLOOR of the building. The OUTSIDE DIMENSIONS of the building equate to about 10,000 square feet. A single floor apartment in a 10,000 square foot footprint building cannot comprise 31,000 square feet. One would think any bank seeing such claims about the apartment as collateral could have verified that with Wilipedia without leaving their chair.

That is easy to verify if you have the address. So no one ever looked, or if they did look were told on the QT not to bring it up.

WTH: I'm glad Trump is finally seeing justice on this but it never should have reached this point. This has been Trump's modus operandi for 40 plus years and journalists like David Cay Johnson have been covering this for at least 15 years. The lies were so blatant that any audit would have turned up dozens of charges in a week or two of effort.

That is so true, it's how he operates and it took me some time to come to grips with that. If you are in the cult you will just think he is a genius for doing this stuff, and, on top of that, he essentially laundered money for the Soviets and got paid. I'm not sure I know everything he did for the Saudis. Oh hell, once we knock him out of the picture it all will come out I'm sure. If you do it now Trump will sic his thugs on you.

The near- billion dollar assessment of Mar-a-lago in large part assumes what it COULD be worth if parceled out into individual lots and converted into single family mansions. Of course, it CANNOT be parceled out like that because the zoning of the existing plot prohibits that in perpetuity. That seems to be one of the factors that aggravated the judge so much because that very issue seems to have come up before.

I hate to say it, but I agree with Team Donald here. If I had $100 million, and they offered to sell me Mar-A-Lago for $100 million, I'd do that every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Because I know I could flip it the next day for well north of $200 million. Or develop it myself - it would be child's play to carve out at least four 2-acre waterfront homesites, sell them for $40-50 million each, and sell the mansion on the remaining 10 acres for twice that. I mean, for g-d's sake the house right next door is only on 3/4 of an acre, isn't waterfront, and is worth $25 million or so:

https://www.redfin.com/FL/Palm-Beach/160-Woodbridg...
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/160-Woodbridge-...

"But Albaby," I hear you say, "what about the permanent and forever covenant that says it always has to be a private club?" No problem. Those covenants don't have to last forever. They almost never do. Because like most such instruments, the covenant says that it can always be released if the Town of Palm Beach agrees to release it. I've worked on more than a dozen projects (frequently on now-defunct golf courses) that are subject to similar restrictions, and local governments are usually willing to consider releasing them in favor of reasonable redevelopment.

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000015a-99cf-dcd4-...

So then - I come in with a development group that includes a politically connected Democratic lobbyist team, and pitch to the Town that they can get Donald Trump out of Palm Beach, commit to returning the main house back to a private residence (not a hotel, which is one of the main things they were really trying to prevent with the covenant), not 20 small-lot (for Palm Beach) single family homes (the other thing they were trying to prevent)? To have a half dozen $50 million plus homes, rather than the PITA that is Mar-A-Lago as a club rather than a residence? Yeah, that's kind of a no brainer.

But why the huge difference between the Property Appraiser value and the price it would yield on the open market? Because even though there is a very real value to the contingency that the covenant will be released, the PA's rules on valuation don't allow them to consider it. Or to use nearby sales of vacant land for estate residences as comps. The PA is required to calculate value based on likely cash-flow analysis from the operation of the private club.

I think the judge is just flat out wrong on this one.

I think the judge is just flat out wrong on this one.

With respect to Mar-a-Lago only, or the entire complaint? It is my understanding that overvaluing was concluded in most/all of his properties. Not just Mar-a-Lago. As another poster said up-thread, how can he have 31K sq ft of living space on a single floor that has a footprint of no more than 10K sq ft?

As an aside, did you see Legal Eagle's ratings of Trump's lawyers? I'm not sure what the levels mean (other than "S" apparently is the best, and the scale goes down from there...never hear of "S" level). Seems like it's more than an opinion, like when he grades a movie for legal accuracy. Trump is surrounding himself with some real losers, if his ranking is accurate.

With respect to Mar-a-Lago only, or the entire complaint?

Just Mar-a-Lago.

It is my understanding that overvaluing was concluded in most/all of his properties. Not just Mar-a-Lago. As another poster said up-thread, how can he have 31K sq ft of living space on a single floor that has a footprint of no more than 10K sq ft?

I didn't read the entire decision, so I can't speak to the other properties - other than to mention that his apartment in Trump Tower is a three-story unit, not a single story.

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/donald-t...

OK, so that bit was specious.

I was a bit surprised at the summary judgment. As you say, that means Trump's lawyers didn't have anything. Nada. Probably has less implications for Trump, and more for his "business". He is insulated -at least somewhat- because his underlings no doubt signed all the paperwork. Just like the documents lawyer at Mar-a-Lago (she's in deep doo-doo). The Guardian was saying that his entire business could come crashing down.

Of more interest to me are the various charges surrounding his attempts to stay in office illegally. He could actually do jail time for those. Of course, if his company collapses, he's not going to be able to pay his lawyers. Last I checked, even the crappy ones don't work for free.

I was a bit surprised at the summary judgment. As you say, that means Trump's lawyers didn't have anything. Nada.

They had stuff. On the Mar-a-Lago issue, they had an expert witness who was going to give testimony that the property was worth a ton of money. The judge dismissed his conclusions as "speculative or unsupported by any evidentiary foundation," and so ignored them.

Here's a link to the order. It's not my field of law, so I might be wrong....but it seems to me like he's gone a bit beyond what's appropriate at summary judgment? Like, it sure seems like he tried the case at this stage, rather than letting the defendants present their case at trial? I am not a litigator, though, so maybe this ruling survives the inevitable appeal.

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23991876/tr...

I thought this was EXACTLY your area of law. Real-estate, and all things involved with same. No?

I thought this was EXACTLY your area of law. Real-estate, and all things involved with same. No?

The substance? Yes.

But I'm not a litigator. So I don't know whether the judge stepped over the line when he evaluated, for example, the expert witness testimony offered by the Trump's on the valuation of Mar-a-Lago. They brought in a real estate broker named Lawrence Moens who's put together some nine-figure deals on Florida real estate involving billionaires - he's apparently the real deal up there:

https://archive.ph/IGgup

...who testified that the valuations proffered by Trump were credible, and that he felt the property could be sold for even higher. Judge Engoron dismissed that testimony as unfounded and speculative.

I don't know whether that's appropriate at summary judgment or not. The law school Civ. Pro. 101 description of that stage in pre-trial motions is that the judge is supposed to determine only whether there's still a material dispute of fact on an issue. Even if one side's evidence isn't very good at all, this motion isn't supposed to resolve disputed issues of fact - only identify the issues where there is no real dispute.

Since I don't litigate, I don't really know the specific contours of what a judge should or should not do in this type of situation. I will say that it kind of boggles the mind that Mar-a-Lago might only be valued at $20 million, when homes right next door that are 1/20th the size and not on the water are selling for more than that.

albaby1: I will say that it kind of boggles the mind that Mar-a-Lago might only be valued at $20 million, when homes right next door that are 1/20th the size and not on the water are selling for more than that.

Funny, in 2020, Trump agreed that the property was fairly valued at $27 million.

Trump might think Mar-a-Lago is worth $1.8 billion, but in 2020, his own company said the Palm Beach appraiser was right. That year, the county valued Mar-a-Lago at $27 million.

"The Petitioner agrees with the determination of the property appraiser or tax collector," a real estate broker representing Mar-a-Lago acknowledged on a form filed with the local Value Adjustment Board, and obtained by CBS News.

Also, Mar-a-Lago is not a residence and is deed restricted as a private club, so comparing it to houses without restrictive deeds is specious. The property can never be developed beyond what it is (this restriction does not vanish with change of ownership), absent renegotiation with neighborhood authority, municipal authority, state authority, and federal authority. (All were parties to the deed agreement.)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-mar-a-lago-1-8-...

From looking into various articles over time about Mar-a-lago's valuation, there are likely many problems at work.

An article in Forbes

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/09/...

indicates:

* Palm Beach County Asssessor previously estimated the property value between $18 and $27.6 million between 2011 and 2021
* Palm Beach County Assessor also issued document in 2023 valuing the property at $37 million
* that 2023 valuation was said to be $6 million higher than the 2022 valuation so that 2022 valuation must have been $31 million
* earlier in 2023, experts consulted by Forbes estimated the property's value at $325 million
* some Trump documents provide values between $427 and $612 million
* recently, Trump and family have cited a valuation near $1.5 billion (BILLION)

Everyone who owns a home should know there tends to be a SIGNIFICANT difference between a valuation a real estate agent might provide if you prepare to sell your house on the open market and the ASSESSED valuation from your county assessor for property tax purposes. I presume everyone gets a yearly notice early in the year from their county assessor reflecting that ASSESSED value and some indication of the tax rate that will apply for the actual bill due towards the end of each year. The real estate tax rate depends on your city / county / school district / etc. In some (hopefully all?) jurisdictions, it is likely that whenever you materially remodel the home or add a deck or pool or an outbuilding and file building permits, sign-off on those building permits typically triggers a site visit from a county appraiser to explicitly update the appraised value kept on file for your property. Most jurisdictions adjust the ASSESSED valuations automatically every two years by running statistical analysis of recent sales of nearby properties with similar characteristics (# storeys, square footage, etc.). As market home prices go upwards, these mechanisms keep ASSESSED values roughly in sync with those MARKET values.

The PROBLEM with all of this is that many communities incorporate weird formulas when determining ASSESSED valuation. One would think it would be easier to only use MARKET prices as the baseline so if you purchase a brand new home for $300,000, then your assessed value starts at $300,000 as well. If you stay in the house 20 years but 7 other homes in the same subdivision with the same design sell for $378,000, then your ASSESSED value would be updated to $378,000 as well and everyone can argue with the same set of numbers -- SALES PRICES.

In reality, many municipalities only use some PERCENTAGE of the "market" price as the assessed price. If your house and identical houses are SELLING for $500,000, the ASSESSED value would be 80% of that or $400,000. I'm not sure why communities do this. Maybe to make their voters think they're saving money on taxes when in fact it isn't the assessed value ALONE that matters, its the product of ASSESSED VALUE and TAX RATE. The problem with that is it isn't clear what scheme is used in Palm Beach County. When an assessor from the county sends you a letter saying he/she thinks your property is worth $30 million and you think it shoulbe worth $37.5 million, are you both in agreement? It depends on whether the county attempts to sync "assessed value" with actual value or if the assessed value is a PERCENTAGE (maybe 80%) of actual value.

There are more important questions with this process. What is the taxpayer's legal obligation to "correct" faulty information provided BY THE ASSESSOR? If they come to your house, walk around the lot, maybe even walk inside with your permission and come up with an estimate of $30 million and you think it's $300 million -- TEN TIMES their estimate -- are you obligated to volunteer a higher amount? Are you committing "fraud" if you don't insist on paying taxes on $300 million when the assessor came and walked around to estimate his own number? I don't think that is the case in any jurisdiction. It's up to the county to hire competent inspectors / assesors and keep their books in order. It is in the jurisdiction's financial interest to do this to generate tax revenue. One could argue that it is in the OWNER'S interest to have a correct assesment value on file with the county as well -- if you decide to sell the property and ask $378,000 for it but county records show it assessed at $300,000, potential buyers (smart ones, anyway) should be looking up the assessed value to verify they aren't overpaying and can use the low-ball ASSESSED value to drive your sale price DOWN. I suspect most owners focus on keeping their yearly real estate tax bill as low as possible and don't contemplate any downward pressure that might apply if they need to sell.

Clearly, there appears to be gross incompetence in Palm Beach County if they are issuing correspondence to Trump AFTER 2021 providing valuations in the $30 million dollar range if the taxpayer himself is blabbing in the media about a $500 million or $1 billion dollar property. It's likely the property's value should have spiked in 2016 and 2017 as We The People paid for numerous security improvements for a location that would be used as a common residence of an active President. Those improvements alone might have been $30 million dollars. Even if assessed value is a percentage of market value, a $30 million assessment when your property owner is mouthing off about BILLION figures indicates something is seriously wrong.

So what IS wrong in Palm Beach County? Incompetent assessors? Corrupt assessors? Flawed automation algorithms in their bi-annual reassessments? How many other properties is the county under-assessing by 10x to 30x orders of magnitude?

In this case, I suspect the judge saw public comments referencing a billion dollars, saw legal documents from Trump citing valuations of $417 million and saw county tax records reflecting figures between $17 and $37 million and said these figures are all not even within 50-100% of each other and do not reflect information being supplied by a BUSINESS in good faith to local jurisdictions -- Florida or New York State. Again, given how Trump organizes his finances, Trump the individual doesn't own these properties. His corporation owns them so any figures involving these properties aren't a personal tax issue, they are corporate records keeping issues that affect both Florida and New York.


WTH

Albaby: I hate to say it, but I agree with Team Donald here.

The filings are supposed to say 18-26 million and back in 2010. And that's the assessor's value which everyone knows is low. Now I haven't found out what the most likely value range was in 2010,or what was argued/presented by Trump & Co., but Donald and Co. just love to misstate things, so I think agreeing with them is premature.

Funny, in 2020, Trump agreed that the property was fairly valued at $27 million.

So?

What the tax appraiser says doesn't necessarily mean that's what the property is worth. Albaby is right; Mar-a-Lago is worth north of 10x that appraisal.

Seriously. Turn off the TDS once in a while.

attorneys say will be the content of their testimony (more or less) - not weighing the credibility or sufficiency of that testimony. If one party has a witness to say that X happened, and the other party has no material evidence whatsoever to contest that X happened, there's no point in making the witness come in and testify at trial.

Thanks Albaby. :)

Here's one of the keys Methinks.

"Engoron also found that Trump inflated the value of his Mar-a-Lago club by at least 2,300%, claiming the property assessed by the county between $18 million and $27.6 million was actually worth between $426,529,614 and $612,110,496.

In total, Engoron wrote that the New York attorney general "submitted conclusive evidence" that the defendants overvalued their assets between $812 million and $2.2 billion.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-submi...

So even if you decide that 450 million is a more reasonable price for Mar a Lago,(and it could be) you still have 1.7 billion in overvaluation. In the grand mix of things, that is large, but not large enough. So let the defendant deal with the uncertainty he created on appeal I would think, or maybe that reasoning doesn't apply here.

Trump might think Mar-a-Lago is worth $1.8 billion, but in 2020, his own company said the Palm Beach appraiser was right. That year, the county valued Mar-a-Lago at $27 million.

Perhaps Trump was trying to have his cake and eat it too; low-balling the appraiser to convince the property tax assessor to keep his property taxes down, while high-balling to leverage it for bank loans?

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