Judge Threatens to Imprison Trump for Violating Gag Order in $250 Million Civil Fraud Trial

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The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial worth 250 million dollars in New York He raised the possibility of imprisoning the former president on Friday after Trump failed to comply with an order of partial silence that required him to delete a publication thatwho was critical of the judge’s law clerk on social media. Judge Arthur Engoron said in court Friday morning that Trump had posted “a false and derogatory post about my clerk” on his social media account and that he spoke to the judge’s law clerk. former president on the matter. “I ordered him to take down the post immediately and he said he took it down,” Engoron said.

NEW YORK — The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial worth $250 million in New York He raised the possibility of imprisoning the former president on Friday after Trump failed to comply with an order of partial silence that required him to delete a publication thatwho criticized the judge’s legal assistant on social networks.

Judge Arthur Engoron said in court Friday morning that Trump had posted “a false and derogatory post about my secretary” on his social media account and that he spoke to the former president about the matter.

“I ordered him to take down the post immediately and he said he took it down,” Engoron said.

He continued: “Despite this order, last night I learned that the offending post was never removed from a website. This is a blatant violation of the gag order. I made it clear [que] Failure to comply will result in serious penalties.”

Engoron said the post, however, remained on Trump’s 2024 campaign website for 17 days and was removed Thursday night after the court emailed him. The judge imposed the limited gag order in early October.

“Incendiary lies can, and have, caused serious physical harm. I will now allow the defendant to explain why this should not result in serious penalties or possibly jail time,” Engoron said.

In response, Trump’s defense attorney, Chris Kise, said, “As I understand it, this was really inadvertent.”

“Truth Social’s post was removed when the court requested it,” Kise said. “Truth Social was removed and Trump never made any further comments about court staff, but it appears that no one removed him from the campaign website. He is unfortunate and I apologize on behalf of my client.”

Trump too faces partial gag order in one of the four criminal cases against him. US District Judge Chutkan askedwhich is overseeing the election interference case in Washington, DC, prohibited Trump from making statements about potential witnesses or disparaging comments about prosecutors.

The civil fraud trial in New York, which does not have a jury, began in early October. New York Attorney General Letitia James sues Trump in September 2022, alleging that the former president and his two adult children engaged in efforts to inflate Trump’s personal net worth to attract favorable loan deals. James alleges there were more than 200 cases of fraud over a 10-year period.

And youn ruling that allowed the trial to continueEngoron said Trump committed fraud for years, inflating and deflating the value of his assets for his own benefit and exaggerating his wealth by billions.

The attorney general is seeking about $250 million in fines and to permanently ban the Trump family from serving as officers of New York companies and prevent Trump from closing commercial real estate deals in the state for five years.

For more information visit NBCNews.com

2023-10-20 15:23:21
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