Last month, New York attorney general Letitia James made headlines after she sued the Trump Organization. She accused twice-impeached former president Donald Trump and his eldest three children of engaging in “staggering” fraud for 1o+ years.
As reported by Business Insider, the disgraced billionaire, 76, and his son Eric, 38, finally got served last week with the 220-page, $250 million fraud case. This, the publication adds, was after a court order, and 3 weeks of the Apprentice alum seemingly attempting to run away from the lawsuit and trying to prevent being served.
BREAKING: Donald Trump has OFFICIALLY been served with Attorney General Letitia James’ 220-page $250 million fraud lawsuit — after he dodged process servers for weeks.
— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) October 19, 2022
According to James and her office’s court filing last week, Donald’s lawyer Alina Habba and Eric’s attorney Clifford Robert never responded to emails that were originally sent to them on September 21st (the day the suit was unveiled), that asked them to confirm that they were indeed the correct people to serve. As Vanity Fair‘s Bess Levin writes, “if you’re wondering whether it’s standard practice for legal representatives to dodge suits on behalf of their clients, it’s not.” Additionally, Insider notes that lawyers for “all of the suit’s other defendants, including Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., had…quickly accepted service.”
The silent treatment from the father-son duo came despite Habba and Robert “having submitted notices to the court in late September,” Insider adds, called “notices of appearance,” which effectively declared themselves to be attorneys of record for the case. This led James’ office to accuse Trump’s side of “gamesmanship,” and the attorney general pursued a court order that would let her simply email the papers to both Habba and Robert.
A Manhattan judge has set October 31 for a hearing on New York Attorney General Letitia James’ demand that the former president’s real-estate and golf resort empire submit to an independent financial monitor https://t.co/JhtADiMSoI
— Tell It Like It Is! (@Jeres_Rant) October 14, 2022
The Manhattan judge handling the case— New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron— quickly agreed, and ruled last Thursday, October 13th, that emailing the papers to the two attorneys would be sufficient as service to both Trumps. According to James’ office’s filing, she sent those emails that same day.
Letitia James is watching Donald Trump LIKE A HAWK!https://t.co/m1oFJ1n6zD
— Occupy Democrats (@OccupyDemocrats) October 15, 2022
Engoron set Monday, October 31st as the official date for oral arguments in the lawsuit’s next dispute. The two sides will argue over James’ claim that the Trump Organization is, as Insider writes, “so rife with ongoing fraud that it’s in immediate need of an independent financial monitor to be appointed and overseen by the judge.”
In a brilliant move using his “very best brain” Donald Trump has created a new corporation, ‘Trump Organization II’, in order to hide assets of his ‘’Trump Organization’.
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“They’ll never think to look there!” some people overheard Donald saying.
. pic.twitter.com/alsg9VaxUu— CC (@ChattByCC) October 14, 2022
Another early dispute, the outlet notes, concerns Engoron himself. He, after all, is the same judge who back in April found Donald Trump in contempt of court for not fully complying with James’ subpoenas in the two-year lead-up to her filing suit. Habba has since asked that the lawsuit be transferred out of Engoron’s courtroom. This means it would be handled by any judge in Manhattan’s commercial division instead, which Insider writes is “tasked with complex business disputes.”
