Trump Inflated Wealth by as Much as $3.6 Billion a Year, NY Says

Erik Larson and Patricia Hurtado
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(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump exaggerated his net worth by as much as $3.6 billion a year by inflating the value of his biggest assets, New York’s top law enforcement officer said in a court filing that sharply increased an estimate she released last week.

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In a filing Friday in her civil fraud lawsuit against Trump, New York Attorney General Letitia James alleged that he regularly overstated his net worth from 2011 to 2021 by billions of dollars almost every year. For seven of those years, she claimed, he inflated his wealth by more than $3 billion. She called it part of a “mountain of evidence” she has against the former president.

The new calculation is part of James’s request that a New York state judge hold Trump liable for fraud even before her $250 million suit against him, his two eldest sons and his company goes to trial on Oct. 2. The figures were included in the attorney general’s opposition to Trump’s own request for a ruling in his favor before trial.

James alleges Trump exaggerated his wealth to dupe banks and insurers into giving him better terms on financial transactions.

Coming Trial

The filing hints at the kind of evidence James intends to present at the trial, which is set to last more than two months. It comes as Trump is facing four unrelated, criminal prosecutions as he seeks to return to the White House in the 2024 election. He denies wrongdoing and argues all the cases are part of a coordinated “witch hunt” by Democrats to undermine his campaign.

“As we will prove at trial, the attorney general’s case is severely flawed and her calculations are entirely inaccurate,” Trump spokeswoman Alina Habba said in a statement.

Read More: Trump Assets Are ‘Mona Lisas,’ He Testifies in NY Fraud Probe

In addition to the $250 million payout to the state, James is seeking to bar each of the Trumps from serving as a director of any New York-based company.

‘Inconsistent Methodologies’

In her filing she said her earlier assertion — that Trump had overstated his assets by as much as $2.2 billion in a single year — was a conservative estimate that didn’t take into account all of his alleged accounting irregularities. James said the state’s experts increased their estimates after correcting for his “inconsistent methodologies.”

He also failed to account for development costs or correct for “unsupportable market assumptions” when preparing his annual financial statements, according to the filing.

The new analysis alleges that from 2011 to 2021 Trump overstated his net worth by $1.9 billion to $3.6 billion a year. James called the new figures a “conservative estimate” and argued the evidence establishes that Trump and his associates “grossly and deceptively inflated his assets and net worth.”

New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron has scheduled a final pretrial conference for Sept. 27.

The case is New York v. Trump, 452564/2022, New York State Supreme Court (Manhattan).

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