President Trump's legal team appealed to a New York court on Monday to overturn the $454 million judgment from his civil fraud trial, asserting that the penalty is unconstitutional and that much of the case should have been dismissed due to the age of the alleged misconduct.
Trump’s lawyers reiterated several arguments they had previously made at the trial court level, including that no financial institutions suffered losses from the loans involved and that the judge made significant errors in his decisions.
This latest filing is part of Trump’s ongoing effort to overturn the $454 million judgment issued by state Judge Arthur Engoron in February. Engoron had determined that Trump, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and their real estate business were liable for fraud. The New York attorney general’s office is expected to submit their counterarguments next month, and the appeals court may review the case as early as September.
Trump’s lawyers described the $464 million award (which includes an additional $10 million for other defendants) as indefensible, arguing that there were no victims, no proven injuries, and no losses. They contended that Engoron made a critical error by not dismissing most of the case after an appeals court ruled last year that certain actions fell outside the statute of limitations.
According to Trump's attorneys, if the statute of limitations were correctly applied, approximately $350 million of the judgment would be eliminated. They argued that the only timely claims pertained to loans for the Old Post Office building in Washington, DC, and the 40 Wall Street building in Manhattan.
Engoron had previously ruled that even if the loans were closed before the 2014 statute of limitations, the issuance of fraudulent financial statements afterward constituted separate acts of fraud. The judge emphasized that the case was about the false financial documents, not the loans themselves.
Trump’s attorneys also criticized Engoron for imposing a punitive and unconstitutional penalty, claiming he ordered excessive disgorgement without accounting for the investments Trump's company made in the properties. They argued that Engoron made incorrect valuations of Trump’s properties, particularly Mar-a-Lago, which was valued at $18 million in the summary judgment.
Engoron clarified during the trial that he cited the tax assessor value without intending to appraise the property's worth. Trump, however, testified that Mar-a-Lago was worth at least $1 billion.
In a statement regarding the appeal, Trump attorney Chris Kise called for the judgment to be completely overturned, describing the ruling as a profound miscarriage of justice that undermines confidence in the New York judicial system.
