Trump Tower penthouse comes under scrutiny at New York fraud trial: recap

The New York fraud trial has been dismissed for the day.

The trial is expected to resume for a half-day Friday morning and it will not be held on Monday, due to it being a federal holiday.

On Tuesday and for the rest of next week, additional witnesses will take the stand. Among them is likely Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s former CFO and a defendant in the case who served time in jail for tax evasion before being released earlier this year.

Also on the witness list is Trump’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, but the precise timing of Cohen’s testimony has not yet been determined. It is likely to occur in coming weeks.

The valuation of Trump’s triplex apartment — which prosecutors say he massively over valuated — is expected to arise during his appeal of Judge Arthur Engoron’s summary judgment ruling made before the trial began.

Engoron reached the same conclusion as prosecutors in his ruling, writing that New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) “unquestionably satisfied” her burden to prove Trump’s property valuation was inflated.

“Perhaps, if the area is rounded or oddly shaped, it is possible measurements of square footage could come to slightly differing results due to user error. Good-faith measurements could vary by as much as 10-20%, not 200%,” Engoron wrote in the ruling.

“A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud,” the trial judge continued.

— Ella Lee

The New York attorney general’s office began presenting a key piece of its case late Thursday afternoon: Trump’s real estate valuations, and in particular, the overvaluation of Trump’s triplex penthouse in Trump Tower.

Andrew Amer, an attorney with the attorney general’s office, showed statements of financial condition that showed the value of the triplex jumped from $80 million in 2011 to $327 million in 2015.

Amer indicated that from 2012 to 2016 Trump submitted statements of financial condition falsely claiming the triplex was 30,000 square feet – when it was really just under 11,000 square feet. The result was an overvaluation of between $114 million to $207 million.

Defense attorneys objected to prosecutors’ cut and dry view of valuing real estate.

“That’s the whole point of the case; there is no one right way,” Kise said.

“I think any high school student knows the right way,” Judge Arthur Engoron replied.

— Ella Lee

Trump attorney Chris Kise said Thursday that the defense will seek a pause in the trial as well as the summary judgment by Judge Arthur Engoron by tomorrow morning.

Prosecutors objected to Trump’s legal team’s notice, which they argued was not provided a full 24 hours before, as is required, because the notice did not describe what type of stay the defendants are seeking.

Kise had argued that the defense had not decided whether to pause both the trial and summary judgment, so they should not have to tell attorneys those details in advance.

“It’s not notice to say that we’re doing something but don’t know what we’re doing yet,” said Andrew Amer, a prosecutor for the New York attorney general’s office.

Engoron said that the trial will continue until an appeal is actually filed, which Kise said Trump’s team expects to do at 10 a.m. Friday.

The summary judgment Engoron issued ahead of the trial strips some of Trump’s business licenses and orders that an independent monitor continue to oversee the Trump Organization. It also found Trump and his co-defendants liable for fraud.

— Ella Lee

The court has taken its daily lunch break. The trial is expected to resume at 2:15 EDT.

Jeffrey McConney testified Thursday that the buck stops at Trump regarding the accuracy of the Trump Organization’s financial records.

Andrew Amer, a prosecutor with the New York attorney general’s office, asked McConney pointedly whether passing along accurate financial records to Mazars USA was a responsibility that fell “squarely on Trump’s shoulders.”

“Yes,” McConney replied.

McConney’s testimony echoes that of the government’s first two witnesses — both accountants for different firms that have represented the Trump Organization.

— Ella Lee

Former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney — a defendant in the case — has taken the stand as the government’s third witness.

McConney said he is no longer employed by the business, having retired in February. He said he was responsible for preparing the valuations that went into the Trump Organization’s statements of financial condition.

— Ella Lee

Ex-Trump accountant Donald Bender completed his testimony as the government’s first witness Thursday around noon after four days of direct and cross-examination.

Bender, who prepared Trump’s personal tax returns for years, testified about the Trump Organization’s financial standing and his work compiling its statements of financial condition. Prosecutors primarily used Bender’s testimony to introduce those documents, which detailed the Trump Organization’s assets, and show Trump’s business — not his accountants — were responsible for any errors in the documents.

Bender’s cross-examination by defense attorneys often grew tense, with Trump’s legal team suggesting that Bender should have kept closer tabs on the finances of the “leader of the free world” and that he was being intentionally “evasive” on the stand.

On Wednesday, Judge Arthur Engoron scolded the defense for attempting to “waste time” and said that the ex-Trump accountant “is not on trial here.”

“I would disagree with that,” said Chris Kise, Trump’s attorney.

“His thoroughness, that he got paid millions a year to do — he was a CPA [certified public accountant]. He has certain responsibilities … He seems to recall only what the government wants him to recall,” Kise continued.

The defense also suggested that the statements of financial condition introduced by prosecutors, ranging from 2011-2020, were too old to be considered as evidence. The judge rejected those arguments in a previous ruling, for which Trump’s legal team has filed an appeal.

— Ella Lee

Defense attorneys for Trump, his business and his sons have no further questions for Donald Bender, the ex-Trump accountant who was the government’s first witness.

The last question asked by Clifford Robert, an attorney for Trump’s adult sons, was whether Bender had any concern over his work for the Trump Organization before meeting with the New York attorney general’s office.

Bender replied that he had no concern over his work for the business until that meeting.

— Ella Lee

On the fourth day of Trump’s civil fraud trial, Judge Arthur Engoron issued an order on the case’s docket barring Trump or any other defendants in the sweeping case from transferring any assets or creating a new entity to acquire them without disclosing it first.

Before the trial began, Engoron found Trump liable for fraud, ruling that New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) had proved the crux of her case. As part of that decision, Engoron ordered the selection of an independent monitor of Trump’s businesses.

Read more here.

— Ella Lee

Trump is not present in the courtroom Thursday, but he took to Truth Social before the trial resumed to blast the fraud case as a “sh.. show.”

“This is sooo bad for New York. HELP! The respected Commercial Division, where it should have been sent in the first place, must take over this ‘sh.. show,'” he said in the post.

He continued to lambast Judge Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing the case, as a “Trump-Hating Judge” despite a gag order placed by Engoron after Trump made a personal attack on the social network that targeted the principal law clerk earlier this week.

— Rema Rahman

Judge Arthur Engoron told Trump attorney Jesus Suarez that his remaining cross-examination of ex-Trump accountant Donald Bender is running out of time.

Suarez will have an hour and a half to finish his questioning before Clifford Robert, an attorney for former President Trump’s sons, will question Bender for about 10 minutes.

Bender’s testimony about the Trump Organization’s financial records has spanned four days, veering into the territory of wasting time, Engoron said Wednesday.

— Ella Lee

Donald Bender, Trump’s longtime accountant formerly at Mazars USA, has taken the stand again for his fourth consecutive day of testimony. He faces continued cross-examination by Trump attorney Jesus Suarez.

Bender, the government’s first witness, prepared Trump’s personal tax returns for years. He was granted immunity to testify on the New York district attorney’s behalf.

On Wednesday, Engoron chided defense attorneys for dragging out their cross-examination of Bender, which had then entered its third day. The government’s second witness, accountant Camron Harris, was asked to testify in between Bender’s continued testimony to save time.

— Ella Lee

The fourth day of Trump’s civil fraud trial is underway after Judge Arthur Engoron took the bench promptly at 10 a.m.

Four photographers were whisked into the room for the first time without the former president being present. They captured pictures of the judge, judge’s clerk, defense team, prosecution and gallery in a departure from their main target on other days.

Engoron joked about a photo taken by a member of the press Wednesday: “I haven’t looked that good since I was 20 years old,” he said.

— Ella Lee

New York Attorney General Letitia James has arrived in court for the fourth day of Trump’s civil fraud trial.

“Good morning, everybody,” James chipperly said upon entering the courtroom.

It’s the first day the former president has not been present after he departed the courthouse Wednesday during a lunch break.

The cross-examination of ex-Trump accountant Donald Bender — the government’s first witness — is expected to pick up at 10 a.m. when the trial resumes.

— Ella Lee

Security and news media presence plummeted on day four of Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York with the notable absence of the former president, who departed the courthouse Wednesday during a lunch break after spending three days in court.

When Trump was at the courthouse, Secret Service and local law enforcement lined the hallways of the New York Supreme Court, operating several security checkpoints and directing the flow of movement. In the courtroom, they stood on each side of the chamber and several officers stood between Trump and the gallery.

But on Thursday, a small number of news media breezed through one security checkpoint, taking seats in the almost empty courtroom minutes after entering the building.

— Ella Lee