New York’s attorney general Letitia James announced she is suing former US president Donald Trump and three of his children for fraud, with the aim of getting them barred from ever again doing business in the state again, Per Second News gathered Wednesday in New York.
Ms James in a news conference said she is referring the civil case to federal prosecutors for potential criminal investigations.
“We’re filing a lawsuit against Donald Trump for violating the law as part of his efforts to generate profits for himself, his family, his company,” Ms James said.
“The complaint demonstrates that Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself and to cheat the system, thereby cheating all of us.”
The civil fraud lawsuit alleges that Mr Trump and those involved in the Trump Organisation falsely valued their assets to get favourable loans or tax benefits.
Three of Mr Trump’s children — Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump — were also named in the lawsuit.
“I never thought this case would be brought,” Mr Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform, while also accusing Ms James of conducting a “get Trump” campaign.
He went on to blame Ms James as a “failed” attorney general causing people to leave New York in a separate post.
Ms James said that her department’s three-year investigation found that the accused had submitted more than 200 false valuations on annual financial statements, which then allowed them to get hundreds of millions of dollars in loans.
The probe began after Mr Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen touched on business misconduct while speaking before Congress in 2019.
