New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ordered former president Donald Trump to pay more than $350 million in penalties, handing down a hefty penalty following a months-long civil trial in which Trump and others were accused of financial fraud by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Engoron also said Trump could not serve as an officer or a director for any New York company for three years.
The disgraced former president has denied all wrongdoing and assailed the case.
Engoron said the nine-figure judgment against Trump and his companies was due in part to how unreliable the former president was as a witness when he testified in early November.
The verdict caps a bad week for Trump.
Republican presidential candidate, former Gov. Nimirata Haley relentlessly battered her GOP rival over his personal attacks on her husband, an army major who is deployed overseas and she weighed in on the death of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
“Putin did this. The same Putin who Donald Trump praises and defends,” said Haley, whilst Trump has so far kept silent since reports that Navalny died.
Another judge in New York set a trial date in Trump’s case there, one of four pending criminal indictments, which are the first such accusations against a former U.S. president.
Trump appeared Thursday before New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan for a hearing, where he learned that his trial on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records was firmly set for March 25.
The ruling may be viewed here.
Trump also missed the deadline to bring his immunity argument to the Supreme Court on Thursday, which means that civil lawsuits against him will proceed to trial.
These events could prove fatal to the Republican presidential frontrunner’s 2024 candidacy and if they are, then there’s little chance that President Joe Biden could survive the general election since Haley leads the unpopular Democrat by up to 15 percent in some polls.