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By Molly Crane-Newman, New York Daily News (TNS)
Donald Trump’s eldest sons testified back-to-back at the family’s fraud trial in Manhattan Supreme Court on Thursday—both denying involvement in statements that exaggerated their father’s net worth by billions despite evidence to the contrary.
Replacing his brother in the witness box shortly before noon, Eric Trump testified that he didn’t know “anything” about his dad’s financial statements until the New York attorney general brought the case on trial—but later said he “absolutely” did.
“I didn’t know anything about it until this case came into fruition,” Eric testified. “I had no involvement and never worked on my father’s statement of financial condition.”
But pressed on his knowledge of the statements’ existence about 45 minutes into his testimony, he appeared to lose his cool.
“We’re a major organization, a massive real estate organization. Yes, I’m fairly sure we have financial statements,” he testified, sounding sarcastic. “Absolutely.”
Those denials came into question when Andrew Amer pulled up emails the state lawyer said showed ex-Trump Organization controller Jeff McConney “expressly” informed him of the statements a decade ago when seeking figures to value Seven Springs, a Trump-owned estate in Westchester, NY. Eric primarily oversaw operations at that property, where he lived for a time with his wife, Lara.
He didn’t deny the validity of the correspondence displayed in court.
“So, you did know about your father’s annual financial statements as of Aug. 20, 2013, didn’t you?” Amer asked.
“It appears that way, yes.”
“And he told you that he needed to value Seven Springs for that annual financial statement?”
“That’s what it says, yes.”
Seven Springs was valued by the company at $291 million in 2013 despite being worth only $57 million, according to the AG’s evidence.
Eric and Don Jr., executive vice presidents at the Trump Organization, took the helm of their father’s real estate empire in 2017 after he became president.
Both have been found liable along with their father and Trump Org execs Allen Weisselberg and McConney for the AG’s top fraud claim. Judge Arthur Engoron determined they committed fraud by lying about the value of company assets in statements submitted to financial institutions from 2014 to 2021.
The AG’s case alleges they conspired to inflate property values—and thus Trump’s net worth—to illegally profit in deals with banks and lenders and land Trump a spot on the Forbes Rich List. An expert witness who testified Wednesday estimated banks lost more than $168 million due to the fraudulent numbers from 2014 through this year.
Despite their senior status—which Don Jr. confirmed Wednesday was only a couple steps from the top—the Trump boys said they shouldn’t be held responsible for the validity of business records they signed off on.
Eric said historically, he’d spoken with McConney almost daily. He claimed it didn’t “register” with him whether the figures he provided the controller were being used for his dad’s financial statements or something else, saying it was “a detail that was irrelevant.”
“I don’t really care where it’s being used,” he testified. “I care about providing them with information from the department that I’m running.”
Asked about a much more recent call in 2021 regarding his dad’s financial statements, Eric couldn’t recall it, either, telling the court he’s on “a thousand calls a day.”
Before resting their case, lawyers for the AG are expected to call Trump to the stand on Monday and his daughter, Ivanka Trump, on Nov. 8. She filed a notice of appeal Wednesday seeking to get out of the testimony. Ivanka was initially a defendant in the case but won dismissal on appeal.
Ivanka, who long held the same title as her brothers, left the city and the company to serve as an unpaid presidential adviser to her father after he won the White House.
Trump, his children and former executives deny all wrongdoing. Among other arguments, they’ve claimed that the value of a building is in the eye of the beholder.
Eric’s assertions mirrored those of his older brother on Wednesday and throughout Thursday morning. The statements exaggerating the value of Trump assets by billions were certified as accurate by Trump’s trustees after he became president—Don Jr. and Weisselberg—but the eldest Trump child pinned responsibility on the company’s in-house and outside accountants.
“I could have certainly partaken, and I probably would have had the most intimate knowledge about those deals, but it doesn’t mean that I used that to put this together,” he said.
“They did that, and so I could have very well been involved in inferring that number, but not specifically know that I was working for that purpose.”
In the case on trial and the company’s criminal case last year—ending in its and Weisselberg’s convictions—Trump and his attorneys have sought to blame the Trump Organization’s former outside accounting firm, Mazars, and the CPA they dealt with, Donald Bender, for any inaccuracies.
Bender, who has not been accused of wrongdoing, previously testified that his job was to compile figures Trump gave him when putting together his net worth—not to ensure the information was accurate. He told Engoron, “They were not getting us all the documents.”
Unlike his brother, who was all smiles in court and cracking jokes with the judge, Eric sounded tense on the stand.
Don Jr. seemed to be particularly concerned with how he looked.
Trump’s firstborn showed veteran courtroom artist and author Jane Rosenberg an AI photo of convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried for inspiration—telling her to “make me look sexy.”
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©2023 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.
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