A New York Court of Appeals has rejected the civil fraud sentence of half a billion dollars that was issued last year against President Donald Trump, his family and his company.
In an opinion of 323 pages, the five judges in the first department of the Appeals Division agreed that the penalty of half a billion dollars imposed on Trump should be expelled.
Two of the judges said Trump was duly responsible for commercial fraud, but the fine was excessive. Two of the judges said the Court of First Instance was wrong to decide that Trump committed fraud and the case should be in his reference; However, these two judges said they joined the decision “with great reluctance” to allow the case to proceed in appeal before the highest court of the State.
A fifth judge said that New York Attorney General, Letitia James, should not have submitted the case first.
“The documentary evidence supports the conclusion of the Supreme Court that the attorney general made a cousin Facie that showed that each defendant participated in the fraudulent scheme,” said the opinion. “The trial registration is also full of evidence that supports the determination of the court that the individual defendants had the necessary intention to disappoint, a necessary element of each claim of the criminal law.”
However, the opinion said, “although the damage certainly happened, it was not the cataclysmic damage that can justify an award of almost half a billion dollars to the State.”
James, in a statement published after the decision, said that his case “has merit” and that he will appeal to the highest court of the State in an attempt to restore penalty.
President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Oval Office of the White House, on August 18, 2025 in Washington.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
“The first department today affirmed the well -supported discovery of the Court of First Instance: Donald Trump, his company and two of his children are responsible for fraud. The court confirmed the precautionary measure that we won, limiting Donald Trump and the capacity of Trump’s organization officers to do business in New York,” the statement said. “We will seek appeal before the Court of Appeals and continue to protect the rights and interests of New Yorkers.”
“Today’s ruling by the New York Court of Appeals is a resounding victory for President Trump and his company,” said Trump’s former personal lawyer Alina Haba, who helped represent Trump in the case and was then appointed interim prosecutor of the United States for New Jersey. “The court noted the scandalous and illegal fine of $ 464 million, confirming what we have said from the beginning: the case of the attorney general was politically motivated, legally without foundation and excessively excessive.”
After a three -month civil trial last year, New York Judge Arthur Genoron found Trump responsible for committing a decade of commercial fraud by inflating his net assets to ensure better trade agreements.
In his written decision, Genoron said that Trump and his coacused were dedicated to frauds that “jump from the page and surprise consciousness”, including the wrong statement that Trump’s attic was three times his real size and valued his Mar-A-Lago estate as a personal residence, instead of a social club.
“Its total lack of contrition and remorse limits with pathology. They are only accused of inflating the values of the assets to earn more money. The documents prove it over and over again,” Genoron wrote, claiming that Trump and his co-depends were “unable to admit the error of their forms.”
The former president has long criticized the case as politically motivated, even during an improvised closing statement he delivered in the Court last year, where he declared an “innocent man.”
“I have been persecuted by someone who runs for a position,” Trump said, referring to the New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the case. “This statute is vicious. It doesn’t give me a jury. It takes away my rights.”
In his February decision, TEGORON temporarily prohibited Trump and his children to lead the New York -based companies and ordered Trump to pay a fine of more than $ 454 million. That number increased around half a billion dollars depending on the interest accumulated in the sentence.
Trump has denied irregularities and argued that the alleged victims in the case were sophisticated counterparts who anxiously agreed to enter business with the Trump organization and benefited from the agreements. These arguments formed the quid of their appeal, presented in July, in which their lawyers argued that James violated the statute of limitations, badly applied the relevant law and encouraged an exclusive penalty.
During a hearing in September, several of the judges in the appeal panel seemed receptive to Trump’s arguments that sought to reverse or reduce their penalty, questioning the size of the massive trial and the application of the fraud statute used to bring the case.
Since Trump’s re -election won in November, his lawyers have implored James to leave the case, citing the dismissal of Trump’s federal criminal cases. James’s lawyers have rejected the request, arguing that Trump’s return to the White House does not affect his civil cases.
“The ordinary burdens of civil litigation do not prevent the president’s official duties in a way that violates the constitution of the United States,” wrote Judith Vale, subdsecator of New York, Judith is worth in a letter to Trump’s lawyer.
Trump owed him more than $ 550 million between three civil judgments, including a sentence of $ 83.3 million in damages for defame the former columnist of Elle E. Jean Carroll magazine and a sentence of $ 5 million granted after a jury found that he sexually abused Carol in the 1990s.
This is a development story. Consult the updates again.
