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<\/div>\nDonald Trump has called the case a “fraud on me” and a “political witch hunt.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
New York: <\/b><\/p>\n
A New York judge on Friday ordered former US President Donald Trump and the Trump Organization to pay a fine of nearly USD 355 million in a civil fraud case.<\/p>\n
According to the 90-page judgement, Trump has been barred from acting as a company director in New York state for three years. His sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, have also asked to pay a fine of USD 4 million each. They have been barred from serving as directors for two years.<\/p>\n
Donald Trump and his two adult sons had already been found liable for massively increasing the value of their properties by hundreds of millions of dollars in a trial that ended in January. However, Trump and his sons have denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
Former US President Donald Trump has called the case a “fraud on me” and a “political witch hunt.” Judge Arthur Engoron’s decision came just weeks after closing arguments in the case following a months-long trial in 2023.<\/p>\n
The attorney general’s office had requested the judge to ask Donald Trump to pay USD 370 million, which is USD 16 million less than ordered by the judge.<\/p>\n
Former Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg was ordered to pay USD 1 million. Weisselberg was also blocked from New York business for three years, according to the order.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, Weisselberg and former controller Jeffrey McConney were banned for life from serving “in the financial control function” of any New York corporation or business entity.<\/p>\n
The judge said the independent monitor he installed to oversee Trump’s business would continue functioning for three years, apart from the installation of an “Independent Director of Compliance.”<\/p>\n
However, the judge reversed the decision ahead of the trial that ordered the cancellation of the defendants’ business certificates. Although the judge stated that the order could be renewed.<\/p>\n
In a statement to The Hill, Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba termed the ruling a “manifest injustice” and the culmination of a “multi-year, politically fueled witch hunt that was designed to ‘take down Donald Trump.'”<\/p>\n
The trial of the case lasted for more than two months, with testimony — sometimes tempestuous from 40 witnesses, including the former US President himself, top Trump Organization executives and Trump’s adult children, according to The Hill report.<\/p>\n
Trump’s financial standing could face a major blow following the USD 354.8 million judgement, and another USD 83.3 million judgement against him for defaming writer E Jean Carroll after he denied her accusation that he sexually assaulted her decades earlier.<\/p>\n
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n