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These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of New York’s Fraud Lawsuit
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Sep 21, 2022 21:59:27   #
Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio
 
These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of New York’s Fraud Lawsuit

New York AG Announces Civil Lawsuit Against Donald Trump
Unmute
New York AG Announces Civil Lawsuit Against Donald Trump
ByErik Larson and Greg Farrell+Follow
September 21, 2022, 4:56 PM EDT
From his skyscrapers to golf resorts, Donald Trump allegedly manipulated the value of a range of assets that inflated his net worth for years and defrauded banks, insurance companies and the Internal Revenue Service, according to New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Her lawsuit against the former president, three of his adult children and others -- which was filed Wednesday and exceeds 200 pages -- provides granular details of what James described as a scheme that reaped about $250 million in benefits from lower interest rates on bank loans, favorable insurance rates and artificially low tax rates.

Here are some of the biggest distortions alleged by James after her years-long probe, which pulled from millions of pages of corporate documents and sworn testimony from dozens of witnesses.

Trump Tower

Trump-Branded New York Building Looks To Remove President's Name
Trump Tower in New York.Photographer: Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg
According to James’s lawsuit, the Trump Organization inflated the value of its Fifth Avenue headquarters from 2011 through 2019. For most of those years, Trump’s financial team allegedly manipulated an accepted formula for property valuations by inflating the property’s net income and using an unusually low capitalization rate. In some cases, the suit claims, Trump’s team relied on data from previous years to create an even more favorable ratio from the formula.

An exception came in 2015, when the Trump Organization changed its valuation methods, apparently in response to the record-setting sale of a nearby building. Trump Tower’s $881 million valuation in 2015 marked a leap from its $707 million valuation the previous year, and occurred because the Trump Organization purportedly relied on market values from sales of similar properties. In fact, James’ suit notes, the new valuation relied solely on the sale of that nearby building, which benefited from a unique set of circumstances that justified its huge valuation.

The next year, the Trump Organization reverted back to its prior valuation method, resulting in a 28% drop in the value of Trump Tower. During the valuation process for the tower in 2019, Trump’s chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg allegedly rejected multiple valuations proposed by a junior employee that would’ve reduced its value to as low as $500 million. Instead, the tower was valued that year at more than $800 million.

Trump’s Triplex Apartment

Trump allegedly inflated the value of his apartment in Trump Tower from 2011 to 2015 by claiming the triplex was approximately 30,000 square feet in size instead of its actual size of 10,996 square feet, and then multiplying that size by an “unreasonable” price per square foot, the lawsuit said. That helped bring the value of the property to $327 million from about $80 million, James alleged.

It was not an honest mistake, James said in the suit. Trump and Weisselberg were intimately familiar with the apartment and its size. James cites a speedy tour of the apartment that Trump gave to an appraiser in 2010, in which Trump did not give the visitor enough time to take any measurements on site, nor was the appraiser allowed to see the entire apartment.

In his deposition, Weisselberg -- who last month pleaded guilty to tax fraud in a separate case -- admitted the size discrepancy resulted in an overstatement of “give or take” $200 million.

Seven Springs

The 212-acre property outside Manhattan, which Trump purchased in 1995 for $7.5 million, consists of two large homes, undeveloped land and a few other buildings. A 2000 appraisal prepared for the Royal Bank of Pennsylvania estimated the “as is” value of Seven Springs at $25 million for residential development, and bank records show that value rose to $30 million in 2006, the lawsuit said.

President Trump's Seven Springs Estate
Donald Trump’s Seven Springs estate in Mount Kisco, New York.Photographer: Johnny Milano/The Washington Post/Getty Images
From 2011 to 2021, valuations of Seven Springs catapulted, ranging from $261 million to $291 million based on the sale of luxury homes net of cost, the lawsuit said. “All of these values were a fiction,” James said in the suit.

She alleged that Eric Trump inflated the value of Seven Springs by exaggerating the development potential and failing to account for the years of work that was needed to make it happen. “The implication of such a valuation is that the lots or homes were ready to sell, and would do so, instantaneously—a false and misleading (and, indeed, impossible) assumption,” James said. Eric Trump, who sometimes lived and worked on the property, also allegedly worked to get a federal tax deduction by arranging a so-called “conservation easement” donation that was based on an inflated value for the land.

Niketown

A Nike Store Ahead Of Earnings Figures
The Niketown store in New York in 2014.Photographer: Craig Warga/Bloomberg
This asset relates to two long-term ground leases held by the Trump Organization since 1995 that comprise retail space previously occupied by Nike Inc. Trump’s 2011 financial statement valued the company’s interest in the property at $263.7 million, based on what the company expected to get from rental activities. But “that representation regarding how the value of Niketown was computed was false and misleading,” James says in the complaint.

In reality, James says, the valuation was derived from a loan-to-value ratio applied to the par value of bonds issued on the property in 1995 that was adjusted upwards each year, a fact the Trump Organization failed to report, according to the suit. Trump also allegedly used a variety of methods to tweak the value of the Niketown property as needed, including by reporting a different a square footage for the property in 2020 and 2021. “There is no indication the square footage of the space changed during that time,” James says.

Trump Park Avenue

relates to These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of New York’s Fraud Lawsuit
Trump Park Avenue in New York in 2005.Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
The property is included as an asset on Trump’s statement of financial condition from 2011 through 2021, with values ranging from almost $91 million to $350 million. His 2012 statement allegedly valued rent-stabilized apartments in the building as if they were unrestricted, leading to a nearly $50 million valuation for those units. An appraisal that properly accounted for those units’ status valued them at a total of just $750,000, according to the suit.

A lead accountant who was involved in the matter testified that he was “shocked by the size of the discrepancy,” James says. Other units in the building were allegedly valued internally at much lower prices, resulting in a “a classic ‘two sets of books’ situation,” according to the suit.

40 Wall Street

Trading On The Floor Of The NYSE As U.S. Stocks Climb Toward Fresh Records While Commodity Shares Lead
The Trump building at 40 Wall Street in New York in 2016.Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
Bank-ordered appraisals for the commercial property in this iconic 1930 Lower Manhattan skyscraper calculated its value at $200 million in August 2010 and $220 million in November 2012. But Trump’s 2011 financial statement allegedly listed the tower at $525 million in 2011 and $531 million in 2013. Trump allegedly achieved the “grossly inflated value” to please his lender, Capital One, for a 2010 loan modification.

The inflated values were allegedly used again in 2015 to negotiate better terms for a new loan through Weisselberg’s son, then an employee at Ladder Capital Finance. according to the suit. They further manipulated the appraisal figure by “unreasonably” lowering expenses to increase net income, in some instances “by revising the building’s budget to reclassify repeated annual costs as ‘one time expenses.’”

Golf Resorts and Other Real Estate

Palm Beach County Covid-19 Positivity Rate Rises
Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.Photographer: Saul Martinez/Bloomberg
The Attorney General’s lawsuit also focuses on valuations of many of Trump’s golf club facilities, which in the aggregate comprised about a third of his total asset value. While Trump didn’t break out the value of individual clubs, his financial statements from 2011 to 2019 claimed they were assessed by his associates and outside professionals, according to the lawsuit. The Trump Organization later dropped that claim after James’s investigation determined that employees of the Trump Organization didn’t consult with outside professionals. The lawsuit says that the Trump Organization used several schemes to inflate the property values, including basing them off the money spent to purchase and maintain the properties, despite being told that such an approach was not appropriate. Trump also added a “brand premium” to the valuation, even though the practice is prohibited under generally accepted accounting principles, the lawsuit said. The valuations also relied on anticipated income from the sale of properties at inflated values, as well as the practice of inflating the value of unsold memberships, James alleged.

As for the famed Mar-a-Lago, James alleged Trump inflated its value from 2011 to 2021. The suit says that numerous restrictions agreed to by Trump precluded the use of the property as anything but a private club, which allowed him to pay a lower tax rate on the property. But on his financial statements, the property was valued as though there were no restrictions, and a “brand premium” was added to the valuation, James alleged.

Reply
Sep 21, 2022 22:10:45   #
Liberty Tree
 
Milosia2 wrote:
These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of New York’s Fraud Lawsuit

New York AG Announces Civil Lawsuit Against Donald Trump
Unmute
New York AG Announces Civil Lawsuit Against Donald Trump
ByErik Larson and Greg Farrell+Follow
September 21, 2022, 4:56 PM EDT
From his skyscrapers to golf resorts, Donald Trump allegedly manipulated the value of a range of assets that inflated his net worth for years and defrauded banks, insurance companies and the Internal Revenue Service, according to New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Her lawsuit against the former president, three of his adult children and others -- which was filed Wednesday and exceeds 200 pages -- provides granular details of what James described as a scheme that reaped about $250 million in benefits from lower interest rates on bank loans, favorable insurance rates and artificially low tax rates.

Here are some of the biggest distortions alleged by James after her years-long probe, which pulled from millions of pages of corporate documents and sworn testimony from dozens of witnesses.

Trump Tower

Trump-Branded New York Building Looks To Remove President's Name
Trump Tower in New York.Photographer: Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg
According to James’s lawsuit, the Trump Organization inflated the value of its Fifth Avenue headquarters from 2011 through 2019. For most of those years, Trump’s financial team allegedly manipulated an accepted formula for property valuations by inflating the property’s net income and using an unusually low capitalization rate. In some cases, the suit claims, Trump’s team relied on data from previous years to create an even more favorable ratio from the formula.

An exception came in 2015, when the Trump Organization changed its valuation methods, apparently in response to the record-setting sale of a nearby building. Trump Tower’s $881 million valuation in 2015 marked a leap from its $707 million valuation the previous year, and occurred because the Trump Organization purportedly relied on market values from sales of similar properties. In fact, James’ suit notes, the new valuation relied solely on the sale of that nearby building, which benefited from a unique set of circumstances that justified its huge valuation.

The next year, the Trump Organization reverted back to its prior valuation method, resulting in a 28% drop in the value of Trump Tower. During the valuation process for the tower in 2019, Trump’s chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg allegedly rejected multiple valuations proposed by a junior employee that would’ve reduced its value to as low as $500 million. Instead, the tower was valued that year at more than $800 million.

Trump’s Triplex Apartment

Trump allegedly inflated the value of his apartment in Trump Tower from 2011 to 2015 by claiming the triplex was approximately 30,000 square feet in size instead of its actual size of 10,996 square feet, and then multiplying that size by an “unreasonable” price per square foot, the lawsuit said. That helped bring the value of the property to $327 million from about $80 million, James alleged.

It was not an honest mistake, James said in the suit. Trump and Weisselberg were intimately familiar with the apartment and its size. James cites a speedy tour of the apartment that Trump gave to an appraiser in 2010, in which Trump did not give the visitor enough time to take any measurements on site, nor was the appraiser allowed to see the entire apartment.

In his deposition, Weisselberg -- who last month pleaded guilty to tax fraud in a separate case -- admitted the size discrepancy resulted in an overstatement of “give or take” $200 million.

Seven Springs

The 212-acre property outside Manhattan, which Trump purchased in 1995 for $7.5 million, consists of two large homes, undeveloped land and a few other buildings. A 2000 appraisal prepared for the Royal Bank of Pennsylvania estimated the “as is” value of Seven Springs at $25 million for residential development, and bank records show that value rose to $30 million in 2006, the lawsuit said.

President Trump's Seven Springs Estate
Donald Trump’s Seven Springs estate in Mount Kisco, New York.Photographer: Johnny Milano/The Washington Post/Getty Images
From 2011 to 2021, valuations of Seven Springs catapulted, ranging from $261 million to $291 million based on the sale of luxury homes net of cost, the lawsuit said. “All of these values were a fiction,” James said in the suit.

She alleged that Eric Trump inflated the value of Seven Springs by exaggerating the development potential and failing to account for the years of work that was needed to make it happen. “The implication of such a valuation is that the lots or homes were ready to sell, and would do so, instantaneously—a false and misleading (and, indeed, impossible) assumption,” James said. Eric Trump, who sometimes lived and worked on the property, also allegedly worked to get a federal tax deduction by arranging a so-called “conservation easement” donation that was based on an inflated value for the land.

Niketown

A Nike Store Ahead Of Earnings Figures
The Niketown store in New York in 2014.Photographer: Craig Warga/Bloomberg
This asset relates to two long-term ground leases held by the Trump Organization since 1995 that comprise retail space previously occupied by Nike Inc. Trump’s 2011 financial statement valued the company’s interest in the property at $263.7 million, based on what the company expected to get from rental activities. But “that representation regarding how the value of Niketown was computed was false and misleading,” James says in the complaint.

In reality, James says, the valuation was derived from a loan-to-value ratio applied to the par value of bonds issued on the property in 1995 that was adjusted upwards each year, a fact the Trump Organization failed to report, according to the suit. Trump also allegedly used a variety of methods to tweak the value of the Niketown property as needed, including by reporting a different a square footage for the property in 2020 and 2021. “There is no indication the square footage of the space changed during that time,” James says.

Trump Park Avenue

relates to These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of New York’s Fraud Lawsuit
Trump Park Avenue in New York in 2005.Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
The property is included as an asset on Trump’s statement of financial condition from 2011 through 2021, with values ranging from almost $91 million to $350 million. His 2012 statement allegedly valued rent-stabilized apartments in the building as if they were unrestricted, leading to a nearly $50 million valuation for those units. An appraisal that properly accounted for those units’ status valued them at a total of just $750,000, according to the suit.

A lead accountant who was involved in the matter testified that he was “shocked by the size of the discrepancy,” James says. Other units in the building were allegedly valued internally at much lower prices, resulting in a “a classic ‘two sets of books’ situation,” according to the suit.

40 Wall Street

Trading On The Floor Of The NYSE As U.S. Stocks Climb Toward Fresh Records While Commodity Shares Lead
The Trump building at 40 Wall Street in New York in 2016.Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
Bank-ordered appraisals for the commercial property in this iconic 1930 Lower Manhattan skyscraper calculated its value at $200 million in August 2010 and $220 million in November 2012. But Trump’s 2011 financial statement allegedly listed the tower at $525 million in 2011 and $531 million in 2013. Trump allegedly achieved the “grossly inflated value” to please his lender, Capital One, for a 2010 loan modification.

The inflated values were allegedly used again in 2015 to negotiate better terms for a new loan through Weisselberg’s son, then an employee at Ladder Capital Finance. according to the suit. They further manipulated the appraisal figure by “unreasonably” lowering expenses to increase net income, in some instances “by revising the building’s budget to reclassify repeated annual costs as ‘one time expenses.’”

Golf Resorts and Other Real Estate

Palm Beach County Covid-19 Positivity Rate Rises
Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.Photographer: Saul Martinez/Bloomberg
The Attorney General’s lawsuit also focuses on valuations of many of Trump’s golf club facilities, which in the aggregate comprised about a third of his total asset value. While Trump didn’t break out the value of individual clubs, his financial statements from 2011 to 2019 claimed they were assessed by his associates and outside professionals, according to the lawsuit. The Trump Organization later dropped that claim after James’s investigation determined that employees of the Trump Organization didn’t consult with outside professionals. The lawsuit says that the Trump Organization used several schemes to inflate the property values, including basing them off the money spent to purchase and maintain the properties, despite being told that such an approach was not appropriate. Trump also added a “brand premium” to the valuation, even though the practice is prohibited under generally accepted accounting principles, the lawsuit said. The valuations also relied on anticipated income from the sale of properties at inflated values, as well as the practice of inflating the value of unsold memberships, James alleged.

As for the famed Mar-a-Lago, James alleged Trump inflated its value from 2011 to 2021. The suit says that numerous restrictions agreed to by Trump precluded the use of the property as anything but a private club, which allowed him to pay a lower tax rate on the property. But on his financial statements, the property was valued as though there were no restrictions, and a “brand premium” was added to the valuation, James alleged.
These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of Ne... (show quote)


Those who love America are more concerned with the disaster Biden is creating than a D.A. out to make a name for herself.

Reply
Sep 21, 2022 22:21:31   #
JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida
 
Liberty Tree wrote:
Those who love America are more concerned with the disaster Biden is creating than a D.A. out to make a name for herself.


These non-provable accusations by this dumbass prosecutor reeks of desperation.

Reply
 
 
Sep 21, 2022 23:26:55   #
RascalRiley Loc: Somewhere south of Detroit
 
Milosia2 wrote:
These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of New York’s Fraud Lawsuit

New York AG Announces Civil Lawsuit Against Donald Trump
Unmute
New York AG Announces Civil Lawsuit Against Donald Trump
ByErik Larson and Greg Farrell+Follow
September 21, 2022, 4:56 PM EDT
From his skyscrapers to golf resorts, Donald Trump allegedly manipulated the value of a range of assets that inflated his net worth for years and defrauded banks, insurance companies and the Internal Revenue Service, according to New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Her lawsuit against the former president, three of his adult children and others -- which was filed Wednesday and exceeds 200 pages -- provides granular details of what James described as a scheme that reaped about $250 million in benefits from lower interest rates on bank loans, favorable insurance rates and artificially low tax rates.

Here are some of the biggest distortions alleged by James after her years-long probe, which pulled from millions of pages of corporate documents and sworn testimony from dozens of witnesses.

Trump Tower

Trump-Branded New York Building Looks To Remove President's Name
Trump Tower in New York.Photographer: Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg
According to James’s lawsuit, the Trump Organization inflated the value of its Fifth Avenue headquarters from 2011 through 2019. For most of those years, Trump’s financial team allegedly manipulated an accepted formula for property valuations by inflating the property’s net income and using an unusually low capitalization rate. In some cases, the suit claims, Trump’s team relied on data from previous years to create an even more favorable ratio from the formula.

An exception came in 2015, when the Trump Organization changed its valuation methods, apparently in response to the record-setting sale of a nearby building. Trump Tower’s $881 million valuation in 2015 marked a leap from its $707 million valuation the previous year, and occurred because the Trump Organization purportedly relied on market values from sales of similar properties. In fact, James’ suit notes, the new valuation relied solely on the sale of that nearby building, which benefited from a unique set of circumstances that justified its huge valuation.

The next year, the Trump Organization reverted back to its prior valuation method, resulting in a 28% drop in the value of Trump Tower. During the valuation process for the tower in 2019, Trump’s chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg allegedly rejected multiple valuations proposed by a junior employee that would’ve reduced its value to as low as $500 million. Instead, the tower was valued that year at more than $800 million.

Trump’s Triplex Apartment

Trump allegedly inflated the value of his apartment in Trump Tower from 2011 to 2015 by claiming the triplex was approximately 30,000 square feet in size instead of its actual size of 10,996 square feet, and then multiplying that size by an “unreasonable” price per square foot, the lawsuit said. That helped bring the value of the property to $327 million from about $80 million, James alleged.

It was not an honest mistake, James said in the suit. Trump and Weisselberg were intimately familiar with the apartment and its size. James cites a speedy tour of the apartment that Trump gave to an appraiser in 2010, in which Trump did not give the visitor enough time to take any measurements on site, nor was the appraiser allowed to see the entire apartment.

In his deposition, Weisselberg -- who last month pleaded guilty to tax fraud in a separate case -- admitted the size discrepancy resulted in an overstatement of “give or take” $200 million.

Seven Springs

The 212-acre property outside Manhattan, which Trump purchased in 1995 for $7.5 million, consists of two large homes, undeveloped land and a few other buildings. A 2000 appraisal prepared for the Royal Bank of Pennsylvania estimated the “as is” value of Seven Springs at $25 million for residential development, and bank records show that value rose to $30 million in 2006, the lawsuit said.

President Trump's Seven Springs Estate
Donald Trump’s Seven Springs estate in Mount Kisco, New York.Photographer: Johnny Milano/The Washington Post/Getty Images
From 2011 to 2021, valuations of Seven Springs catapulted, ranging from $261 million to $291 million based on the sale of luxury homes net of cost, the lawsuit said. “All of these values were a fiction,” James said in the suit.

She alleged that Eric Trump inflated the value of Seven Springs by exaggerating the development potential and failing to account for the years of work that was needed to make it happen. “The implication of such a valuation is that the lots or homes were ready to sell, and would do so, instantaneously—a false and misleading (and, indeed, impossible) assumption,” James said. Eric Trump, who sometimes lived and worked on the property, also allegedly worked to get a federal tax deduction by arranging a so-called “conservation easement” donation that was based on an inflated value for the land.

Niketown

A Nike Store Ahead Of Earnings Figures
The Niketown store in New York in 2014.Photographer: Craig Warga/Bloomberg
This asset relates to two long-term ground leases held by the Trump Organization since 1995 that comprise retail space previously occupied by Nike Inc. Trump’s 2011 financial statement valued the company’s interest in the property at $263.7 million, based on what the company expected to get from rental activities. But “that representation regarding how the value of Niketown was computed was false and misleading,” James says in the complaint.

In reality, James says, the valuation was derived from a loan-to-value ratio applied to the par value of bonds issued on the property in 1995 that was adjusted upwards each year, a fact the Trump Organization failed to report, according to the suit. Trump also allegedly used a variety of methods to tweak the value of the Niketown property as needed, including by reporting a different a square footage for the property in 2020 and 2021. “There is no indication the square footage of the space changed during that time,” James says.

Trump Park Avenue

relates to These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of New York’s Fraud Lawsuit
Trump Park Avenue in New York in 2005.Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
The property is included as an asset on Trump’s statement of financial condition from 2011 through 2021, with values ranging from almost $91 million to $350 million. His 2012 statement allegedly valued rent-stabilized apartments in the building as if they were unrestricted, leading to a nearly $50 million valuation for those units. An appraisal that properly accounted for those units’ status valued them at a total of just $750,000, according to the suit.

A lead accountant who was involved in the matter testified that he was “shocked by the size of the discrepancy,” James says. Other units in the building were allegedly valued internally at much lower prices, resulting in a “a classic ‘two sets of books’ situation,” according to the suit.

40 Wall Street

Trading On The Floor Of The NYSE As U.S. Stocks Climb Toward Fresh Records While Commodity Shares Lead
The Trump building at 40 Wall Street in New York in 2016.Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
Bank-ordered appraisals for the commercial property in this iconic 1930 Lower Manhattan skyscraper calculated its value at $200 million in August 2010 and $220 million in November 2012. But Trump’s 2011 financial statement allegedly listed the tower at $525 million in 2011 and $531 million in 2013. Trump allegedly achieved the “grossly inflated value” to please his lender, Capital One, for a 2010 loan modification.

The inflated values were allegedly used again in 2015 to negotiate better terms for a new loan through Weisselberg’s son, then an employee at Ladder Capital Finance. according to the suit. They further manipulated the appraisal figure by “unreasonably” lowering expenses to increase net income, in some instances “by revising the building’s budget to reclassify repeated annual costs as ‘one time expenses.’”

Golf Resorts and Other Real Estate

Palm Beach County Covid-19 Positivity Rate Rises
Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.Photographer: Saul Martinez/Bloomberg
The Attorney General’s lawsuit also focuses on valuations of many of Trump’s golf club facilities, which in the aggregate comprised about a third of his total asset value. While Trump didn’t break out the value of individual clubs, his financial statements from 2011 to 2019 claimed they were assessed by his associates and outside professionals, according to the lawsuit. The Trump Organization later dropped that claim after James’s investigation determined that employees of the Trump Organization didn’t consult with outside professionals. The lawsuit says that the Trump Organization used several schemes to inflate the property values, including basing them off the money spent to purchase and maintain the properties, despite being told that such an approach was not appropriate. Trump also added a “brand premium” to the valuation, even though the practice is prohibited under generally accepted accounting principles, the lawsuit said. The valuations also relied on anticipated income from the sale of properties at inflated values, as well as the practice of inflating the value of unsold memberships, James alleged.

As for the famed Mar-a-Lago, James alleged Trump inflated its value from 2011 to 2021. The suit says that numerous restrictions agreed to by Trump precluded the use of the property as anything but a private club, which allowed him to pay a lower tax rate on the property. But on his financial statements, the property was valued as though there were no restrictions, and a “brand premium” was added to the valuation, James alleged.
These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of Ne... (show quote)


Well written article. Those that discount the possibility that Trump did any of this are outing themselves as members of his mesmerized cult.

Reply
Sep 22, 2022 03:07:26   #
Jlw Loc: Wisconsin
 
JFlorio wrote:
These non-provable accusations by this dumbass prosecutor reeks of desperation.


Yep

Reply
Sep 22, 2022 04:24:35   #
liberalhunter Loc: Your mom's house
 
Milosia2 wrote:
These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of New York’s Fraud Lawsuit

New York AG Announces Civil Lawsuit Against Donald Trump
Unmute
New York AG Announces Civil Lawsuit Against Donald Trump
ByErik Larson and Greg Farrell+Follow
September 21, 2022, 4:56 PM EDT
From his skyscrapers to golf resorts, Donald Trump allegedly manipulated the value of a range of assets that inflated his net worth for years and defrauded banks, insurance companies and the Internal Revenue Service, according to New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Her lawsuit against the former president, three of his adult children and others -- which was filed Wednesday and exceeds 200 pages -- provides granular details of what James described as a scheme that reaped about $250 million in benefits from lower interest rates on bank loans, favorable insurance rates and artificially low tax rates.

Here are some of the biggest distortions alleged by James after her years-long probe, which pulled from millions of pages of corporate documents and sworn testimony from dozens of witnesses.

Trump Tower

Trump-Branded New York Building Looks To Remove President's Name
Trump Tower in New York.Photographer: Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg
According to James’s lawsuit, the Trump Organization inflated the value of its Fifth Avenue headquarters from 2011 through 2019. For most of those years, Trump’s financial team allegedly manipulated an accepted formula for property valuations by inflating the property’s net income and using an unusually low capitalization rate. In some cases, the suit claims, Trump’s team relied on data from previous years to create an even more favorable ratio from the formula.

An exception came in 2015, when the Trump Organization changed its valuation methods, apparently in response to the record-setting sale of a nearby building. Trump Tower’s $881 million valuation in 2015 marked a leap from its $707 million valuation the previous year, and occurred because the Trump Organization purportedly relied on market values from sales of similar properties. In fact, James’ suit notes, the new valuation relied solely on the sale of that nearby building, which benefited from a unique set of circumstances that justified its huge valuation.

The next year, the Trump Organization reverted back to its prior valuation method, resulting in a 28% drop in the value of Trump Tower. During the valuation process for the tower in 2019, Trump’s chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg allegedly rejected multiple valuations proposed by a junior employee that would’ve reduced its value to as low as $500 million. Instead, the tower was valued that year at more than $800 million.

Trump’s Triplex Apartment

Trump allegedly inflated the value of his apartment in Trump Tower from 2011 to 2015 by claiming the triplex was approximately 30,000 square feet in size instead of its actual size of 10,996 square feet, and then multiplying that size by an “unreasonable” price per square foot, the lawsuit said. That helped bring the value of the property to $327 million from about $80 million, James alleged.

It was not an honest mistake, James said in the suit. Trump and Weisselberg were intimately familiar with the apartment and its size. James cites a speedy tour of the apartment that Trump gave to an appraiser in 2010, in which Trump did not give the visitor enough time to take any measurements on site, nor was the appraiser allowed to see the entire apartment.

In his deposition, Weisselberg -- who last month pleaded guilty to tax fraud in a separate case -- admitted the size discrepancy resulted in an overstatement of “give or take” $200 million.

Seven Springs

The 212-acre property outside Manhattan, which Trump purchased in 1995 for $7.5 million, consists of two large homes, undeveloped land and a few other buildings. A 2000 appraisal prepared for the Royal Bank of Pennsylvania estimated the “as is” value of Seven Springs at $25 million for residential development, and bank records show that value rose to $30 million in 2006, the lawsuit said.

President Trump's Seven Springs Estate
Donald Trump’s Seven Springs estate in Mount Kisco, New York.Photographer: Johnny Milano/The Washington Post/Getty Images
From 2011 to 2021, valuations of Seven Springs catapulted, ranging from $261 million to $291 million based on the sale of luxury homes net of cost, the lawsuit said. “All of these values were a fiction,” James said in the suit.

She alleged that Eric Trump inflated the value of Seven Springs by exaggerating the development potential and failing to account for the years of work that was needed to make it happen. “The implication of such a valuation is that the lots or homes were ready to sell, and would do so, instantaneously—a false and misleading (and, indeed, impossible) assumption,” James said. Eric Trump, who sometimes lived and worked on the property, also allegedly worked to get a federal tax deduction by arranging a so-called “conservation easement” donation that was based on an inflated value for the land.

Niketown

A Nike Store Ahead Of Earnings Figures
The Niketown store in New York in 2014.Photographer: Craig Warga/Bloomberg
This asset relates to two long-term ground leases held by the Trump Organization since 1995 that comprise retail space previously occupied by Nike Inc. Trump’s 2011 financial statement valued the company’s interest in the property at $263.7 million, based on what the company expected to get from rental activities. But “that representation regarding how the value of Niketown was computed was false and misleading,” James says in the complaint.

In reality, James says, the valuation was derived from a loan-to-value ratio applied to the par value of bonds issued on the property in 1995 that was adjusted upwards each year, a fact the Trump Organization failed to report, according to the suit. Trump also allegedly used a variety of methods to tweak the value of the Niketown property as needed, including by reporting a different a square footage for the property in 2020 and 2021. “There is no indication the square footage of the space changed during that time,” James says.

Trump Park Avenue

relates to These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of New York’s Fraud Lawsuit
Trump Park Avenue in New York in 2005.Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
The property is included as an asset on Trump’s statement of financial condition from 2011 through 2021, with values ranging from almost $91 million to $350 million. His 2012 statement allegedly valued rent-stabilized apartments in the building as if they were unrestricted, leading to a nearly $50 million valuation for those units. An appraisal that properly accounted for those units’ status valued them at a total of just $750,000, according to the suit.

A lead accountant who was involved in the matter testified that he was “shocked by the size of the discrepancy,” James says. Other units in the building were allegedly valued internally at much lower prices, resulting in a “a classic ‘two sets of books’ situation,” according to the suit.

40 Wall Street

Trading On The Floor Of The NYSE As U.S. Stocks Climb Toward Fresh Records While Commodity Shares Lead
The Trump building at 40 Wall Street in New York in 2016.Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
Bank-ordered appraisals for the commercial property in this iconic 1930 Lower Manhattan skyscraper calculated its value at $200 million in August 2010 and $220 million in November 2012. But Trump’s 2011 financial statement allegedly listed the tower at $525 million in 2011 and $531 million in 2013. Trump allegedly achieved the “grossly inflated value” to please his lender, Capital One, for a 2010 loan modification.

The inflated values were allegedly used again in 2015 to negotiate better terms for a new loan through Weisselberg’s son, then an employee at Ladder Capital Finance. according to the suit. They further manipulated the appraisal figure by “unreasonably” lowering expenses to increase net income, in some instances “by revising the building’s budget to reclassify repeated annual costs as ‘one time expenses.’”

Golf Resorts and Other Real Estate

Palm Beach County Covid-19 Positivity Rate Rises
Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.Photographer: Saul Martinez/Bloomberg
The Attorney General’s lawsuit also focuses on valuations of many of Trump’s golf club facilities, which in the aggregate comprised about a third of his total asset value. While Trump didn’t break out the value of individual clubs, his financial statements from 2011 to 2019 claimed they were assessed by his associates and outside professionals, according to the lawsuit. The Trump Organization later dropped that claim after James’s investigation determined that employees of the Trump Organization didn’t consult with outside professionals. The lawsuit says that the Trump Organization used several schemes to inflate the property values, including basing them off the money spent to purchase and maintain the properties, despite being told that such an approach was not appropriate. Trump also added a “brand premium” to the valuation, even though the practice is prohibited under generally accepted accounting principles, the lawsuit said. The valuations also relied on anticipated income from the sale of properties at inflated values, as well as the practice of inflating the value of unsold memberships, James alleged.

As for the famed Mar-a-Lago, James alleged Trump inflated its value from 2011 to 2021. The suit says that numerous restrictions agreed to by Trump precluded the use of the property as anything but a private club, which allowed him to pay a lower tax rate on the property. But on his financial statements, the property was valued as though there were no restrictions, and a “brand premium” was added to the valuation, James alleged.
These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of Ne... (show quote)




Who cares? Go pop some zits or clean something......make a man a sammich..... but for everyone's sake...... shut up already, you're a huge bore.

Reply
Sep 22, 2022 11:04:24   #
Justice101
 
Milosia2 wrote:
These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of New York’s Fraud Lawsuit

New York AG Announces Civil Lawsuit Against Donald Trump
Unmute
New York AG Announces Civil Lawsuit Against Donald Trump
ByErik Larson and Greg Farrell+Follow
September 21, 2022, 4:56 PM EDT
From his skyscrapers to golf resorts, Donald Trump allegedly manipulated the value of a range of assets that inflated his net worth for years and defrauded banks, insurance companies and the Internal Revenue Service, according to New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Her lawsuit against the former president, three of his adult children and others -- which was filed Wednesday and exceeds 200 pages -- provides granular details of what James described as a scheme that reaped about $250 million in benefits from lower interest rates on bank loans, favorable insurance rates and artificially low tax rates.

Here are some of the biggest distortions alleged by James after her years-long probe, which pulled from millions of pages of corporate documents and sworn testimony from dozens of witnesses.

Trump Tower

Trump-Branded New York Building Looks To Remove President's Name
Trump Tower in New York.Photographer: Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg
According to James’s lawsuit, the Trump Organization inflated the value of its Fifth Avenue headquarters from 2011 through 2019. For most of those years, Trump’s financial team allegedly manipulated an accepted formula for property valuations by inflating the property’s net income and using an unusually low capitalization rate. In some cases, the suit claims, Trump’s team relied on data from previous years to create an even more favorable ratio from the formula.

An exception came in 2015, when the Trump Organization changed its valuation methods, apparently in response to the record-setting sale of a nearby building. Trump Tower’s $881 million valuation in 2015 marked a leap from its $707 million valuation the previous year, and occurred because the Trump Organization purportedly relied on market values from sales of similar properties. In fact, James’ suit notes, the new valuation relied solely on the sale of that nearby building, which benefited from a unique set of circumstances that justified its huge valuation.

The next year, the Trump Organization reverted back to its prior valuation method, resulting in a 28% drop in the value of Trump Tower. During the valuation process for the tower in 2019, Trump’s chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg allegedly rejected multiple valuations proposed by a junior employee that would’ve reduced its value to as low as $500 million. Instead, the tower was valued that year at more than $800 million.

Trump’s Triplex Apartment

Trump allegedly inflated the value of his apartment in Trump Tower from 2011 to 2015 by claiming the triplex was approximately 30,000 square feet in size instead of its actual size of 10,996 square feet, and then multiplying that size by an “unreasonable” price per square foot, the lawsuit said. That helped bring the value of the property to $327 million from about $80 million, James alleged.

It was not an honest mistake, James said in the suit. Trump and Weisselberg were intimately familiar with the apartment and its size. James cites a speedy tour of the apartment that Trump gave to an appraiser in 2010, in which Trump did not give the visitor enough time to take any measurements on site, nor was the appraiser allowed to see the entire apartment.

In his deposition, Weisselberg -- who last month pleaded guilty to tax fraud in a separate case -- admitted the size discrepancy resulted in an overstatement of “give or take” $200 million.

Seven Springs

The 212-acre property outside Manhattan, which Trump purchased in 1995 for $7.5 million, consists of two large homes, undeveloped land and a few other buildings. A 2000 appraisal prepared for the Royal Bank of Pennsylvania estimated the “as is” value of Seven Springs at $25 million for residential development, and bank records show that value rose to $30 million in 2006, the lawsuit said.

President Trump's Seven Springs Estate
Donald Trump’s Seven Springs estate in Mount Kisco, New York.Photographer: Johnny Milano/The Washington Post/Getty Images
From 2011 to 2021, valuations of Seven Springs catapulted, ranging from $261 million to $291 million based on the sale of luxury homes net of cost, the lawsuit said. “All of these values were a fiction,” James said in the suit.

She alleged that Eric Trump inflated the value of Seven Springs by exaggerating the development potential and failing to account for the years of work that was needed to make it happen. “The implication of such a valuation is that the lots or homes were ready to sell, and would do so, instantaneously—a false and misleading (and, indeed, impossible) assumption,” James said. Eric Trump, who sometimes lived and worked on the property, also allegedly worked to get a federal tax deduction by arranging a so-called “conservation easement” donation that was based on an inflated value for the land.

Niketown

A Nike Store Ahead Of Earnings Figures
The Niketown store in New York in 2014.Photographer: Craig Warga/Bloomberg
This asset relates to two long-term ground leases held by the Trump Organization since 1995 that comprise retail space previously occupied by Nike Inc. Trump’s 2011 financial statement valued the company’s interest in the property at $263.7 million, based on what the company expected to get from rental activities. But “that representation regarding how the value of Niketown was computed was false and misleading,” James says in the complaint.

In reality, James says, the valuation was derived from a loan-to-value ratio applied to the par value of bonds issued on the property in 1995 that was adjusted upwards each year, a fact the Trump Organization failed to report, according to the suit. Trump also allegedly used a variety of methods to tweak the value of the Niketown property as needed, including by reporting a different a square footage for the property in 2020 and 2021. “There is no indication the square footage of the space changed during that time,” James says.

Trump Park Avenue

relates to These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of New York’s Fraud Lawsuit
Trump Park Avenue in New York in 2005.Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
The property is included as an asset on Trump’s statement of financial condition from 2011 through 2021, with values ranging from almost $91 million to $350 million. His 2012 statement allegedly valued rent-stabilized apartments in the building as if they were unrestricted, leading to a nearly $50 million valuation for those units. An appraisal that properly accounted for those units’ status valued them at a total of just $750,000, according to the suit.

A lead accountant who was involved in the matter testified that he was “shocked by the size of the discrepancy,” James says. Other units in the building were allegedly valued internally at much lower prices, resulting in a “a classic ‘two sets of books’ situation,” according to the suit.

40 Wall Street

Trading On The Floor Of The NYSE As U.S. Stocks Climb Toward Fresh Records While Commodity Shares Lead
The Trump building at 40 Wall Street in New York in 2016.Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
Bank-ordered appraisals for the commercial property in this iconic 1930 Lower Manhattan skyscraper calculated its value at $200 million in August 2010 and $220 million in November 2012. But Trump’s 2011 financial statement allegedly listed the tower at $525 million in 2011 and $531 million in 2013. Trump allegedly achieved the “grossly inflated value” to please his lender, Capital One, for a 2010 loan modification.

The inflated values were allegedly used again in 2015 to negotiate better terms for a new loan through Weisselberg’s son, then an employee at Ladder Capital Finance. according to the suit. They further manipulated the appraisal figure by “unreasonably” lowering expenses to increase net income, in some instances “by revising the building’s budget to reclassify repeated annual costs as ‘one time expenses.’”

Golf Resorts and Other Real Estate

Palm Beach County Covid-19 Positivity Rate Rises
Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.Photographer: Saul Martinez/Bloomberg
The Attorney General’s lawsuit also focuses on valuations of many of Trump’s golf club facilities, which in the aggregate comprised about a third of his total asset value. While Trump didn’t break out the value of individual clubs, his financial statements from 2011 to 2019 claimed they were assessed by his associates and outside professionals, according to the lawsuit. The Trump Organization later dropped that claim after James’s investigation determined that employees of the Trump Organization didn’t consult with outside professionals. The lawsuit says that the Trump Organization used several schemes to inflate the property values, including basing them off the money spent to purchase and maintain the properties, despite being told that such an approach was not appropriate. Trump also added a “brand premium” to the valuation, even though the practice is prohibited under generally accepted accounting principles, the lawsuit said. The valuations also relied on anticipated income from the sale of properties at inflated values, as well as the practice of inflating the value of unsold memberships, James alleged.

As for the famed Mar-a-Lago, James alleged Trump inflated its value from 2011 to 2021. The suit says that numerous restrictions agreed to by Trump precluded the use of the property as anything but a private club, which allowed him to pay a lower tax rate on the property. But on his financial statements, the property was valued as though there were no restrictions, and a “brand premium” was added to the valuation, James alleged.
These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of Ne... (show quote)


Many of Mr. Trump’s financial statements, the filing argued, were “generally inflated as part of a pattern to suggest that Mr. Trump’s net worth was higher than it otherwise would have appeared.” The filing cited what Ms. James’s office believes were misleading statements about the value of Mr. Trump’s golf clubs in Westchester County, N.Y., and Scotland, his flagship commercial property at 40 Wall Street in Manhattan and his penthouse triplex in Trump Tower.

The company provided these statements to lenders and insurers, the filing said.

So were the lenders and insurers defrauded? And if so, why aren’t they suing Trump? It’s because they weren’t defrauded at all, it seems:

They also might argue that the Trump Organization submitted the statements to sophisticated financial institutions that conducted their own due diligence. In recent months, he paid off some of those loans, an outcome that funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into the coffers of his banks, making them an unsympathetic victim.

Ahem. It doesn’t make them “an unsympathetic victim” (bad syntax aside), it makes them no victims at all. The lenders haven’t lost money on the transactions, and the Trumps haven’t filed insurance claims for losses at inflated values. Even if they had, the insurers would be the party of standing for a civil lawsuit. If Trump stopped paying on any of the existing loans, his lenders could take him to court to get their money. None of them seem inclined to do so.

If James has an argument that the misrepresentation created a tax fraud, that might be worthwhile, but that kind of enforcement action would come from New York’s revenue agency first. Besides, tax assessments are made independently of valuation claims from property owners. Trump’s alleged inflation of his property value to lenders and insurers would have nothing to do with tax issues, nor does it appear that James is even alleging that as part of her lawsuit.

If the lender and insurers aren’t complaining, and the property taxes got paid as assessed, where is the fraud? And even more importantly, where is the standing of the AG’s office to act as a plaintiff in such matters?

Of course, these questions prompt another: why did Trump and his team offer to settle the case, if James doesn’t actually have one? The answer to both sets of questions is likely the same: politics. Trump wants to cut loose of all his legal liabilities ahead of a likely bid for the GOP presidential nomination. And James likely wants to handicap him to prevent that bid.

ED MORRISSEY

Reply
 
 
Sep 22, 2022 13:54:52   #
AlexT
 
The whole affair reeks of continued TDS connected to the DNC which is trying to prevent Trump from another presidential run in 2024. After two failed impeachment attempts and a floundering J6 hearing run by Pelosi the question remains is this the fourth attempt? For shame.

Reply
Sep 22, 2022 14:56:12   #
hygrometer3
 
RascalRiley wrote:
Well written article. Those that discount the possibility that Trump did any of this are outing themselves as members of his mesmerized cult.


You are late for your job--cleaning Trudeau $hithouse and washing his pink panties--If you want you can try some of his pink panties on!!!!!Have fun--Big BOY???

Reply
Sep 22, 2022 15:03:16   #
Bevvy
 
RascalRiley wrote:
Well written article. Those that discount the possibility that Trump did any of this are outing themselves as members of his mesmerized cult.


My "cult" is the cult of Christ .



Reply
Sep 22, 2022 15:08:17   #
RascalRiley Loc: Somewhere south of Detroit
 
Bevvy wrote:
My "cult" is the cult of Christ .

Jesus and Donny would be best friends. Donny is so much like the Christ. /s

Reply
 
 
Sep 22, 2022 15:14:01   #
EmilyD
 
Milosia2 wrote:
These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of New York’s Fraud Lawsuit

New York AG Announces Civil Lawsuit Against Donald Trump
Unmute
New York AG Announces Civil Lawsuit Against Donald Trump
ByErik Larson and Greg Farrell+Follow
September 21, 2022, 4:56 PM EDT
From his skyscrapers to golf resorts, Donald Trump allegedly manipulated the value of a range of assets that inflated his net worth for years and defrauded banks, insurance companies and the Internal Revenue Service, according to New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Her lawsuit against the former president, three of his adult children and others -- which was filed Wednesday and exceeds 200 pages -- provides granular details of what James described as a scheme that reaped about $250 million in benefits from lower interest rates on bank loans, favorable insurance rates and artificially low tax rates.

Here are some of the biggest distortions alleged by James after her years-long probe, which pulled from millions of pages of corporate documents and sworn testimony from dozens of witnesses.

Trump Tower

Trump-Branded New York Building Looks To Remove President's Name
Trump Tower in New York.Photographer: Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg
According to James’s lawsuit, the Trump Organization inflated the value of its Fifth Avenue headquarters from 2011 through 2019. For most of those years, Trump’s financial team allegedly manipulated an accepted formula for property valuations by inflating the property’s net income and using an unusually low capitalization rate. In some cases, the suit claims, Trump’s team relied on data from previous years to create an even more favorable ratio from the formula.

An exception came in 2015, when the Trump Organization changed its valuation methods, apparently in response to the record-setting sale of a nearby building. Trump Tower’s $881 million valuation in 2015 marked a leap from its $707 million valuation the previous year, and occurred because the Trump Organization purportedly relied on market values from sales of similar properties. In fact, James’ suit notes, the new valuation relied solely on the sale of that nearby building, which benefited from a unique set of circumstances that justified its huge valuation.

The next year, the Trump Organization reverted back to its prior valuation method, resulting in a 28% drop in the value of Trump Tower. During the valuation process for the tower in 2019, Trump’s chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg allegedly rejected multiple valuations proposed by a junior employee that would’ve reduced its value to as low as $500 million. Instead, the tower was valued that year at more than $800 million.

Trump’s Triplex Apartment

Trump allegedly inflated the value of his apartment in Trump Tower from 2011 to 2015 by claiming the triplex was approximately 30,000 square feet in size instead of its actual size of 10,996 square feet, and then multiplying that size by an “unreasonable” price per square foot, the lawsuit said. That helped bring the value of the property to $327 million from about $80 million, James alleged.

It was not an honest mistake, James said in the suit. Trump and Weisselberg were intimately familiar with the apartment and its size. James cites a speedy tour of the apartment that Trump gave to an appraiser in 2010, in which Trump did not give the visitor enough time to take any measurements on site, nor was the appraiser allowed to see the entire apartment.

In his deposition, Weisselberg -- who last month pleaded guilty to tax fraud in a separate case -- admitted the size discrepancy resulted in an overstatement of “give or take” $200 million.

Seven Springs

The 212-acre property outside Manhattan, which Trump purchased in 1995 for $7.5 million, consists of two large homes, undeveloped land and a few other buildings. A 2000 appraisal prepared for the Royal Bank of Pennsylvania estimated the “as is” value of Seven Springs at $25 million for residential development, and bank records show that value rose to $30 million in 2006, the lawsuit said.

President Trump's Seven Springs Estate
Donald Trump’s Seven Springs estate in Mount Kisco, New York.Photographer: Johnny Milano/The Washington Post/Getty Images
From 2011 to 2021, valuations of Seven Springs catapulted, ranging from $261 million to $291 million based on the sale of luxury homes net of cost, the lawsuit said. “All of these values were a fiction,” James said in the suit.

She alleged that Eric Trump inflated the value of Seven Springs by exaggerating the development potential and failing to account for the years of work that was needed to make it happen. “The implication of such a valuation is that the lots or homes were ready to sell, and would do so, instantaneously—a false and misleading (and, indeed, impossible) assumption,” James said. Eric Trump, who sometimes lived and worked on the property, also allegedly worked to get a federal tax deduction by arranging a so-called “conservation easement” donation that was based on an inflated value for the land.

Niketown

A Nike Store Ahead Of Earnings Figures
The Niketown store in New York in 2014.Photographer: Craig Warga/Bloomberg
This asset relates to two long-term ground leases held by the Trump Organization since 1995 that comprise retail space previously occupied by Nike Inc. Trump’s 2011 financial statement valued the company’s interest in the property at $263.7 million, based on what the company expected to get from rental activities. But “that representation regarding how the value of Niketown was computed was false and misleading,” James says in the complaint.

In reality, James says, the valuation was derived from a loan-to-value ratio applied to the par value of bonds issued on the property in 1995 that was adjusted upwards each year, a fact the Trump Organization failed to report, according to the suit. Trump also allegedly used a variety of methods to tweak the value of the Niketown property as needed, including by reporting a different a square footage for the property in 2020 and 2021. “There is no indication the square footage of the space changed during that time,” James says.

Trump Park Avenue

relates to These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of New York’s Fraud Lawsuit
Trump Park Avenue in New York in 2005.Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
The property is included as an asset on Trump’s statement of financial condition from 2011 through 2021, with values ranging from almost $91 million to $350 million. His 2012 statement allegedly valued rent-stabilized apartments in the building as if they were unrestricted, leading to a nearly $50 million valuation for those units. An appraisal that properly accounted for those units’ status valued them at a total of just $750,000, according to the suit.

A lead accountant who was involved in the matter testified that he was “shocked by the size of the discrepancy,” James says. Other units in the building were allegedly valued internally at much lower prices, resulting in a “a classic ‘two sets of books’ situation,” according to the suit.

40 Wall Street

Trading On The Floor Of The NYSE As U.S. Stocks Climb Toward Fresh Records While Commodity Shares Lead
The Trump building at 40 Wall Street in New York in 2016.Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
Bank-ordered appraisals for the commercial property in this iconic 1930 Lower Manhattan skyscraper calculated its value at $200 million in August 2010 and $220 million in November 2012. But Trump’s 2011 financial statement allegedly listed the tower at $525 million in 2011 and $531 million in 2013. Trump allegedly achieved the “grossly inflated value” to please his lender, Capital One, for a 2010 loan modification.

The inflated values were allegedly used again in 2015 to negotiate better terms for a new loan through Weisselberg’s son, then an employee at Ladder Capital Finance. according to the suit. They further manipulated the appraisal figure by “unreasonably” lowering expenses to increase net income, in some instances “by revising the building’s budget to reclassify repeated annual costs as ‘one time expenses.’”

Golf Resorts and Other Real Estate

Palm Beach County Covid-19 Positivity Rate Rises
Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.Photographer: Saul Martinez/Bloomberg
The Attorney General’s lawsuit also focuses on valuations of many of Trump’s golf club facilities, which in the aggregate comprised about a third of his total asset value. While Trump didn’t break out the value of individual clubs, his financial statements from 2011 to 2019 claimed they were assessed by his associates and outside professionals, according to the lawsuit. The Trump Organization later dropped that claim after James’s investigation determined that employees of the Trump Organization didn’t consult with outside professionals. The lawsuit says that the Trump Organization used several schemes to inflate the property values, including basing them off the money spent to purchase and maintain the properties, despite being told that such an approach was not appropriate. Trump also added a “brand premium” to the valuation, even though the practice is prohibited under generally accepted accounting principles, the lawsuit said. The valuations also relied on anticipated income from the sale of properties at inflated values, as well as the practice of inflating the value of unsold memberships, James alleged.

As for the famed Mar-a-Lago, James alleged Trump inflated its value from 2011 to 2021. The suit says that numerous restrictions agreed to by Trump precluded the use of the property as anything but a private club, which allowed him to pay a lower tax rate on the property. But on his financial statements, the property was valued as though there were no restrictions, and a “brand premium” was added to the valuation, James alleged.
These Are the Trump Properties at the Center of Ne... (show quote)

Let's see....what did you just say to "Bevvy"??? Oh yeah.....

No one cares what you have to say, anyways !
...

Reply
Sep 22, 2022 20:39:57   #
Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio
 
Liberty Tree wrote:
Those who love America are more concerned with the disaster Biden is creating than a D.A. out to make a name for herself.


Figures , I am more obsessed with how much money trump has stolen from me.

Reply
Sep 22, 2022 20:41:10   #
Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio
 
RascalRiley wrote:
Jesus and Donny would be best friends. Donny is so much like the Christ. /s


Isn’t he truly , though.

Reply
Sep 22, 2022 20:42:00   #
Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio
 
EmilyD wrote:
Let's see....what did you just say to "Bevvy"??? Oh yeah.....

No one cares what you have to say, anyways !
...


Why do you choose to defend her insult to me ?

Reply
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