Trump properties named in New York fraud lawsuit

A bombshell lawsuit against former President Donald Trump filed Wednesday contains a head-spinning amount of detail about real estate, loans and other financial arrangements that New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges were elements of a wide-ranging fraud that spanned years.

James claims that Trump and his company, the Trump Organization fraudulently manipulated the valuations of properties owned by the company to obtain better terms on loans and insurance and to lower their tax burdens. Trump strongly denies any wrongdoing.

Here are some highlights from the civil suit, which names Trump but his three oldest children, the Trump Organization, and two company executives as defendants.

• Statements of Financial Condition: Between 2011 and 2021, Trump’s annual Statements of Financial Condition, which purported to state his net worth, “were fraudulent and misleading,” inflating his net worth falsely by billions of dollars each year, James’ office said. The statements included valuations of properties and other assets that also were allegedly fraudulent and misleading.
• Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida: This property was valued at as much as $739 million on the “false premise that it was unrestricted property and could be developed and sold for residential use, even though Mr. Trump himself signed deeds donating his residential development rights, sharply restricting changes to the property, and limiting the permissible use of the property to a social club,” James’ office said. “In reality, the club generated annual revenues of less than $25 million and should have been valued at closer to $75 million.”
• Seven Springs, Westchester County, New York: A 212-acre estate, which Trump bought in 1995 for $7.5 million, was valued at up to $291 million in the past decade based on claims that the property had zoning for nine mansions that could be sold for a profit of more than $161 million. “These values were a fiction, totally unsupported by the development history of the property and contradicted by every professional valuation done on the property,” James’ office said.
• Trump International Hotel & Tower, Chicago: This property’s value has not been included on Trump’s financial statements since 2009 “because, according to sworn testimony, Mr. Trump did not want to take a position that would conflict with his contention to tax authorities that the property had become worthless, and thus formed the basis of a substantial loss under the federal tax code,” James’ office said. But in 2012, Trump and his company obtained a $107 million loan on the property from Deutsche Bank, using the building or its components as collateral. “The loan received a $45 million expansion in 2014,” James’ office said.
• Trump Old Post Office, Washington, D.C.: The Trump Organization’ obtained a $170…