Lawyer Wife was shocked when she heard this, and went on for a good long bit about how this is absolutely grounds for an ineffective counsel appeal, and that he could very well get the appeal granted…she does securities law now so spends time with regulatory agencies, but started her career as a litigator, and was professionally offended at this clear mistake.
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they’re already in the process of dissolving his ny businesses, and the courts said that can go on during this process.
so in that respect, for this particular set of charges, i don’t think it really matters if he appeals.
maybe he can get someone to temporarily halt the sale of assets, or even - after long appeals if he were to somehow win - claw back ownership of whatever hasn’t been sold off, but my understanding is, he’s not in charge anymore.
( eta: according to reuters there’s no exact timeline for the dissolution. the judge gave 30 days for recommendations on who might take over the business entities. )
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I wonder if this means the whole trial is appealable under ineffective counsel before it even starts.
Habba is a Central NJ real estate lawyer who ingratiated herself into Trump’s circle. She’s way out of her depth and already built a reputation of unprofessional conduct with this judge. (Trying to interject or talk over a judge is a major no-no).
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Not for a civil case and someone with his means.
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Not unless the case was remotely winnable, which it is not. The defense didn’t challenge the facts, and the facts show a clear violation of NY law.
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As I understand it from LW, the fact that they didn’t challenge it, and let the Judge decide the count the way he did, itself speaks to the lawyer’s not knowing what the hell they were doing. Her whole point is that he needed someone steeped in business law, and had his normal clownshow of people not remotely qualified for the jobs they were doing. That being said, she’s not licensed in NY and doesn’t know the ins-and-outs of the law there, but she was already playing her all-to-often-played (sometimes it gets tiring lol) mental mind game of “what if I were the lawyer” and working out how she’d do an ineffective counsel play here in IL.
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What boggles my mind is Cheetolini has had the means his entire life to have afforded (and retained) the best counsel NYC has to offer, yet he’s so petty and short-sighted that he failed to bother with (or pay for) any of that. Which is especially puzzling given the sort of “business” he engaged in for decades.
Now he faces the almost certain threat of going bankrupt for-realsies in a manner that will be nigh-on impossible to overcome, particularly when you factor in the substantial costs for campaigning, plus all his other pending legal matters, etc.
All of the above brings me great joy and it will be very pleasing to watch all this play out. I hope he is reduced to liquidating everything he owns & spends the rest of his days hawking MAGA hats outside his local McDonald’s.
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From what I’ve read here, All NY law requires to prove this charge is 1. The defendant made knowingly false statements in financial disclosure documents and 2. Intended the misrepresentation.
There doesn’t need to be harm or damages, there doesn’t have to be malfeasance, there doesn’t have to even be an intent to defraud. Hell, the disclaimers in his contracts actually work against him in this case! They simply don’t have any defense on the facts. No lawyer, no matter how good, can create different facts in this case. The only thing they can do is minimize the penalties. And, as @danimagoo points out above, a jury trial is a sword that cuts both ways:
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It’s not so much being steeped in business law at this point, it’s just baseline procedural knowledge for people licensed to practice in NY. Not requesting a jury is just a boneheaded omission.
There aren’t too many legal arguments Trump’s team can be making. Fraud was already determined in the absence of triable issues of fact. They can make presentations of evidence to help mitigate the extent of judgment. But I doubt there are any.
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For Trump. when only the best mall lawyers will do.
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What trial? The judge already ruled.
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no lawyer who values their license would stand for a client like the orange one. that’s how he wound up with the ones he’s got.
it’s not about money i don’t think. it’s about malpractice.
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The wall just got ten feet higher!
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The draft that had that checked off is around here somewhere (rifling through the bathtub file repository).
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Damages, the extent of the fraud and how much of Trump’s businesses to be liquidated.
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So awesome that Trump himself boasted he could shoot someone dead on 5th Avenue and people would still vote for him.
What kind of a reality vortex have we found ourselves in?
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I grew up in Canada. A childhood friend had American parents who had immigrated in recent years. Usually, at that time, that meant “draft dodgers”, which was fine with me. But in his case, his father got a bullet through his leg in Vietnam. He was most definitely not a dodger.
They were in Canada because they were teachers, and they’d looked long and hard at what was happening to public education in the US. They left, because they were not sure how much longer civil society could last when people’s education was being compromised to that degree. They gave it a couple generations, max.
So to answer your question: we seem to be in the reality vortex foreseen by my friend’s parents. Which sucks.
ETA: not that the US is unique with this problem. They aren’t. Not at all.
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Plus, this trial is going to run until December. What New York juror would find in his favor after 2 months of listening to his whining?
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