#Loan Fraud Case

[thetaxguyin]

ED Provisions: Immovable Properties Worth ₹43.84 Crore Attached in PMLA Cas

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Mumbai recently made a significant announcement regarding the provisional attachment of immovable properties, including several floors of Hotel One Continent in Hyderabad. Valued at ₹43.84 crore, these properties have been provisionally attached under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, in connection with a loan fraud case…

[badolmen]

I’m really frustrated my card got locked on Friday - I’ve been going through donating $5 to roughly 12-14 campaigns for weeks now but this week it gets flagged as potential fraud? Not only that the company is closed on the weekends so I have to wait until Monday to unlock my card (if I was still living alone and had to buy my own groceries/pay for gas I would be in trouble).

[scamsupdateindia]

ED Arrests Himansh Verma in Rs 1,257 Crore Syndicate Bank Fraud Case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has apprehended a significant conspirator involved in the Rs 1,257 crore Syndicate Bank loan fraud. On October 15, Himanshu Verma, also known as Himansh Verma, a resident of Chandigarh, was arrested and subsequently presented before a special court in Jaipur. The judge has remanded Verma to ED custody for 10 days, until October 25.

ED Initiates Money Laundering Investigation

The ED initiated a money laundering investigation under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, against officials of the former Syndicate Bank (now Canara Bank) and other suspects. This investigation was based on First Information Reports (FIRs) and a charge sheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Details of the Syndicate Bank Fraud

According to the ED's Jaipur-based Zonal Office, from 2011 to 2016, the main fraudster Bharat Bomb, a Chartered Accountant from Udaipur, Rajasthan, colluded with bank officials to defraud the Syndicate Bank of Rs 1,257 crore through fraudulent loans and fake cheque discounting.

Himansh Verma's Role in the Fraud

The ED's investigation revealed that Himanshu Verma was a key associate of Bharat Bomb, receiving approximately Rs 85 crore in proceeds from the crime. Properties worth Rs 14.88 crore belonging to Verma and his family have been attached by the ED.

"Himanshu Verma received proceeds of crime in various bank accounts he operated and controlled, using complex transactions to place, layer, and integrate the tainted funds," stated the ED.

Verma's Criminal Background and Evasion Tactics

The agency also highlighted that Verma is a hardcore criminal with multiple FIRs registered against him and his family members in various police stations across Punjab and Chandigarh. He is wanted by both the Punjab Police and the CBI.

In an attempt to evade authorities, Verma changed his name to Himansh Verma, obtained a fraudulent police verification report, and secured a new passport under his new name. He traveled abroad via Nepal before the passport authorities canceled his passport upon discovering his criminal background.

Lack of Cooperation with ED Investigation

Despite multiple summonses from the ED, Verma remained uncooperative throughout the investigation, appearing only once.

[alex51324]

Please note that the civil fraud case is about him misrepresenting how wealthy he is, in order to get better rates on loans and insurance.

He is appealing, because of course he is, but he needs to put up the amount of the judgement in order to appeal; he would get it back if the appeal succeeded. The amount--it's called "disgorgement"--is based on what he is estimated to have fraudulently obtained.

In other words, the amount of money he got, by claiming to be wealthy, is an amount that he now can neither cough up, nor get anybody to lend to him. It's not just that he doesn't have the full $464 million in cash/liquid assets: he doesn't have enough to put up to get the loan*.

According to his own attorneys, he has approached 30 underwriters in an effort to secure a loan. None of them are interested in securing this loan with real estate or other non-liquid assets**.

So now he's asking the court to cut him a break, so that he can appeal the ruling. You know, the ruling saying that he lied about being rich, in order to fraudulently obtain loans. Because he doesn't have the money, and can't find anyone willing to believe him when he says he's good for it.

He's asking them to let him appeal without putting up the bond, so he can go back to court and prove that he really is rich and has no need to defraud anyone to get a loan.

(*No idea what they're asking in terms of collateral, but for reference, if you are a common criminal putting up a bond to get out of jail before trial, the bail bondsman usually asks 10% of the bond amount.)

(**Gee, I wonder why?)

[1americanconservative]

Today Letitia James posted on X about how Donald Trump committed years of fraud and how she proved it with the trial. The reality doesn’t agree with her assessment and she should be disbarred at a minimum.

In truth, she had to bring a civil case, not a criminal one. Secondly, the bank executives who she claimed were victims testified that they didn’t use the financial statements when giving Donald Trump the loans.

Also, the Judge, his clerk, and the AG all showed extreme bias outside and inside of the courtroom. This case will stand as an example of political targeting in the worst way. These people will be remembered in history as the scumbags they truly are.

How can anyone in good conscience support this travesty of justice? If they can go after the former President of the United States and leading GOP candidate, what do you think they’ll do to you?

[simply-ivanka]

O'Leary Ventures chief and "Shark Tank's" "Mr. Wonderful" Kevin O'Leary warned real estate investors against developing in New York following a state judge's ruling that former President Trump must pay $355 million in punitive damages in his civil fraud case.

O'Leary told "Fox & Friends Weekend" to take the "Trump factor" out of the equation and look at the case as if it were any real estate developer with a marked presence in New York State.

"Forget about the Trump factor," he said. "It's not about that. What does this say to everybody that wants to do work in New York and wants to risk capital? … this judge arbitrarily decide[d] that this is the right amount. I don't understand it. No developer does."

He added, "It's an atrocity. It's an embarrassment, but it's an assault on real estate."

O'Leary echoed his comments Monday on "Cavuto: Coast to Coast" on FOX Business.

'New York was already a loser state, like California is a loser state. There are many loser states because of policy, high taxes on competitive regulation,' he said. 'I would never invest in New York now. And I'm not the only person saying that.' 

O'Leary said very few business sectors create the amount of cash flow that real estate does. What Trump was found liable for doing, he argued, is not too different from the typical "haggling" that goes on between a prospective debtor and a bank.

"You go to a bank and you say, 'Look, I want to borrow $200 million to build a building’. And they say, ‘What assets do you have that we can secure this loan against?’ And you point to a building you built before, and you haggle, and you argue about the value of that building."

With New York appearing to categorize some instances of that process as potentially fraudulent, O'Leary said New York has supplanted California as the top name on his list of "loser states" for business.

[copperbadge]

sam, as someone who professionally stalks rich people for fun and profit and therefore have long term observational data on them as a class, how likely is it that the mess that is twitter is musk trying to get out of the loans that are pulling tesla down via bankruptcy, and relatedly, considering that he's obviously doing all the value tanking on his own either through incompetence or malice, how likely is it that it'd end up a bankruptcy fraud case?

The problem is that by the time people get to where Elon Musk is now, most nonprofits have "disqualified" them. It's not that we won't take meetings with them or take their money, but we won't go out of our way to solicit it unless we are willing to take that PR hit. So I haven't researched many people who are malignant supervillains in quite the public way Elon Musk is. War criminals, yes; incredibly unethical finance guys, tons; active public fuckups like Elon Musk? Not as much. So I'm actually less well-educated in this kind of situation than one might think.

I have researched numerous finance guys who were convicted of financial misconduct. They fight it every step up to a point, they do everything possible to seem conventional and innocent...and they take their medicine quietly when it becomes obvious they're going to have to, so that they don't create a three-ring circus and endanger future investments by making too much noise. They get banned for three or five or eight years, and then they either get a shell to do their work for them or they take a three year vacation and then come back and quietly start up again.

As opposed to Elon Musk, who’s just like “I’m not afraid of the FTC. Come at me bro” and then shrieks like a child when they do.  

It's actually really difficult to tell what Musk is doing deliberately and what is just overwhelming incompetence. Like, how the fuck do you get where Twitter is this morning without doing it deliberately? But there’s no overestimating human stupidity, its well is bottomless. 

I don't subscribe to the Four Dimensional Chess theory that this was planned from the beginning. Musk tried too hard to squirm out of the deal, and he's much, much too sensitive about the way people have seen his actions, for me to think this is part of some master plan. He's also kind of a dumbass. But I'm not sure he's the extreme dumbass he's coming across as, either. It’s hard to know. The second he was forced to buy Twitter, I suspect either he realized, or someone close to him casually said, "You know, you can buy an asset, load it with debt, and dump it, especially if society values it highly enough to want it back from you." So what he's doing now might be deliberate even if it didn’t start out that way. 

On the other hand, I have my doubts, because every time he fucks Twitter up he does seem to be demanding someone else fix it. Tanking the value of an asset deliberately generally goes smoother than this to be honest. And I don't credit him as being canny enough to seem this random in order to fool the authorities that he's not committing fraud. So I lean, slightly, towards “Oh he’s just a real dumbass who’s not used to things not going his way.” but I can’t say with confidence that this is the case. 

I am also not following this as closely and breathlessly as some, so what I know of the situation is generally osmoted from daily headline reading and whatever crosses my dash on tumblr. I'm not buried in the specifics, so this is coming from a very distant view of what's happening. If he does declare bankruptcy for Twitter, I think there will be a fraud case regardless, because it's such a huge asset and he took it down so fast -- and he himself was so mired in debt -- that there has to be. You can’t just accept it. But I don't think he'll get convicted, if push comes to shove. I think probably there is a large bailout somewhere in his future, because that's just how life seems to roll these days.

I suppose we'll see. Sorry, this is a very ambiguous answer, but I'm working on like 3/4 of the knowledge I'd have if I was asked to do this for work, and I'd do more research but I'm real tired of seeing his incredibly punchable face.

[justforbooks]

Mike Lynch

British tech entrepreneur who sold his Autonomy software group to Hewlett-Packard and was later cleared after a long-running US fraud case

Mike Lynch, who has died aged 59 in the wreck of his yacht, was sometimes described as “Britain’s Bill Gates”. It was a huge exaggeration, but Lynch could claim two parallels with Gates: he developed world-leading technology (in his case in machine learning or AI) and, unlike so many UK scientists, he learned how to turn it into commercial success.

Such was this success that his company, Autonomy, was valued at $11bn when he sold it to Hewlett-Packard in 2011, but the fall-out from the sale would come to overshadow his technological achievements, and lead to a national debate about the circumstances in which UK citizens may be extradited to the US.

Lynch founded Autonomy with two partners in 1996. Its software enabled a computer to search huge quantities of diverse information, including phone calls, emails and videos, and recognise words. He told the Independent in 1999: “The way our technology works is to look at words and understand the relationships because it has seen a lot of content before. When it sees the word ‘star’ in the context of film, it knows it has nothing to do with the word moon. Because it works from text, it can deal with slang and with different languages.”

Autonomy became a leading company in Cambridge’s Silicon Fen cluster and established a base in San Francisco. “We knew we had to be successful in America. It was a question of ‘Go West young man, go to San Francisco and be ignored.’ They found it hard to believe that anyone from England could have anything powerful.” Lynch found what he called the “cold-hearted schmooze” to secure funding tough.

But Autonomy’s software, enabling computers to identify and match themes and ideas, and sort mammoth amounts of data, was licensed to more than 500 customers, including the US State Department and the BBC. It was listed on Nasdaq in 1998 and on the FTSE 100 in November 2000, although its value of £5.1bn would be halved within a few months in the collapse of the technology boom and accusations of over-promotion. In 2005 it bought a major US rival, Verity, for $500m.

Lynch’s profile rose with it. In 2006 he was appointed OBE for services to enterprise and the following year joined the board of the BBC. In 2011 he became a member of the government’s Council for Science and Technology, and was named the most influential person in UK IT by Computer Weekly. In 2014 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.

Though quietly spoken, he had a reputation for toughness, coloured by a liking for James Bond, which led to Autonomy conference rooms being named after Bond villains, and a tank of piranha fish in reception. (Lynch claimed it belonged to one of his business partners.) Challenged about a company culture where people were “a little fanatical”, he replied: “This is not the place for you if you want to work 9 to 5 and don’t love your work.”

Born in Ilford, east London, to Michael, a firefighter, and Dolores, a nurse, and brought up in Chelmsford, Lynch won a scholarship to the independent Bancroft’s school in Woodford Green, before taking a natural sciences degree at Cambridge, where his PhD in artificial neural networks, a form of machine learning, has been widely studied since.

A saxophone player and jazz lover, he set up his first business, Lynett Systems, while still a student, to produce electronic equipment for the music industry. Later he would attribute some loss of hearing to adjusting synthesisers for bands. He quoted his own experience to highlight the difficulties of finding funding for startup businesses in Britain. He finally negotiated a £2,000 loan from one of the managers of Genesis in a Soho bar.

Lynch’s next venture came out of his research. In 1991 he founded Cambridge Neurodynamics, specialising in computer-based fingerprint recognition. Then he established Autonomy.

The pinnacle of his success appeared to come in October 2011 when Autonomy was purchased by Hewlett-Packard for $11bn and Lynch made an estimated $800m. Shortly afterwards he established a new company, Invoke Capital, for investment in tech companies, and he and his wife, Angela Bacares, whom he had married in 2001, invested about £200m in Darktrace, a cybersecurity company.

But just 13 months after the Autonomy sale, HP announced an $8.8bn writedown of the assets “due to serious accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations” which it claimed had artificially inflated the company’s value. The authorities investigated, and while the UK Serious Fraud Office found insufficient evidence, in 2018 the US authorities indicted Lynch for fraud. Soon after, Autonomy’s chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to five years in prison.

In March 2019 HP followed up with a civil action for fraud in London. Lynch spent days in the witness box as the civil action stretched over nine months. It ended in January 2022 with the judge ruling that HP had substantially succeeded, but that damages would be much less than the $5bn they had claimed.

Meanwhile the US authorities sought Lynch’s extradition on criminal charges of conspiracy and fraud. In spite of representations by senior politicians and accusations that the US authorities were attempting to exercise “extraterritorial jurisdiction”, a district judge ruled in favour of extradition.

An application for judicial review and a further appeal failed, and in May 2023 Lynch was flown to the US to be held under house arrest in San Francisco, with the prospect of a 25-year sentence.

Charged with wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy, on 18 March this year Lynch pleaded not guilty, alongside his former vice-president of finance, Stephen Chamberlain. On 6 June, they were found not guilty of all charges. Chamberlain died after being hit by a car on 17 August.

Lynch declared that he wanted to get back to what he loved doing – innovating. But he had little opportunity to do so. He soon embarked on a voyage to celebrate his acquittal, with family, colleagues and business associates. It ended with the sinking of his yacht, Bayesian – named after the 18th-century mathematician, Thomas Bayes, whose work on probability had informed much of his thinking – in a violent storm off the coast of Sicily.

Lynch is survived by his wife and elder daughter, Esme. Their other daughter, Hannah, was also on board the Bayesian.

🔔 Michael Richard Lynch, technology entrepreneur, born 16 June 1965; died 19 August 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil Police find fraud evidence against Jair Bolsonaro Jr

Jair Renan Bolsonaro, the youngest son of former Brazilian President Jair Messias Bolsonaro, is suspected together with a friend (and shooting instructor, Maciel Alves) of fraudulent misrepresentation, use of false documents, and money laundering in connection with an application for a bank loan, the Federal District Civil Police (PCDF) said in a statement Thursday. No further details were released, given the case's seal of secrecy.

Jair Bolsonaro Jr denied having committed anything illegal since a police raid in August last year during which some of his electronic devices were seized. According to the PCDF, it is now up to the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Federal District and Territories (MPDFT) to analyze the case and decide whether to file charges against both men.

Earlier this week, police searched the homes and offices of top aides to the former president as part of an investigation accusing them of plotting a coup to oust Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Jan. 8, 2023. Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, and Carlos Bolsonaro, a Rio de Janeiro councilman - all sons of the former president - are also under investigation in separate cases.

Continue reading.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

X

 New York appeals court on Monday gave former president Donald Trump ten more days to post a $175 million bond in his civil-fraud case. If he pays the reduced amount by the deadline, he won’t need to satisfy the original $464 million judgment and will avoid having has assets seized.

Last month, Manhattan supreme court judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump and his co-defendants, including his two adult sons and former Trump Organization executives, to pay more than $460 million in damages and interest for fraudulently inflating the value of his business assets.

The appellate ruling temporarily prevents New York attorney general Letitia James from seizing the real-estate mogul’s properties to enforce the judgment, which she previously indicated she would do if he didn’t post a bond by Monday. The collection deadline is now delayed to early next month.

The order also allows Trump and his sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, to run the family’s New York businesses and obtain loans from New York banks, both of which were previously banned for the next three years under Engoron’s order. The Manhattan judge’s court-ordered monitor and the appointment of a compliance director for Trump’s company is still in effect, though.

[beardedmrbean]

A Utah woman who authorities say fatally poisoned her husband then published a children’s book about coping with grief is set to appear in court Monday for the start of a multiday hearing that will determine whether prosecutors have enough evidence against her to proceed with a trial.

Kouri Richins, 34, faces several felony charges for allegedly killing her husband with a lethal dose of fentanyl in March 2022 at their home in a small mountain town near Park City. Prosecutors say she slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a Moscow mule cocktail that Eric Richins, 39, drank.

Additional charges filed in March accuse her of an earlier attempt to kill him with a spiked sandwich on Valentine’s Day. She has been adamant in maintaining her innocence.

Utah state Judge Richard Mrazik had delayed the hearing in May after prosecutors said they would need three consecutive days to present their evidence. The case was further slowed when Kouri Richins’ team of private attorneys withdrew from representing her. Mrazik determined she was unable to continue paying for private representation, and he appointed public defenders Wendy Lewis and Kathy Nester to take over her case.

In the months leading up to her arrest in May 2023, the mother of three self-published the children’s book “Are You with Me?” about a father with angel wings watching over his young son after passing away. The book could play a key role for prosecutors in framing Eric Richins’ death as a calculated killing with an elaborate cover-up attempt. Prosecutors have accused Kouri Richins of making secret financial arrangements and buying the illegal drug as her husband began to harbor suspicions about her.

Both the defense and prosecution plan to call on witnesses and introduce evidence to help shape their narratives in the case. Mrazik is expected to decide after the hearing whether the state has presented sufficient evidence to go forward with a trial.

Among the witnesses who could be called are relatives of the defendant and her late husband, a housekeeper who claims to have sold Kouri Richins the drugs, and friends of Eric Richins who have recounted phone conversations from the day prosecutors say he was first poisoned by his wife of nine years.

Kouri Richins’ former lead defense attorney, Skye Lazaro, had argued the housekeeper had motivation to lie as she sought leniency in the face of drug charges, and that Eric Richins’ sisters had a clear bias against her client amid a battle over his estate and a concurrent assault case.

A petition filed by his sister, Katie Richins, alleges Kouri Richins had financial motives for killing her husband as prosecutors say she had opened life insurance policies totaling nearly $2 million without his knowledge and mistakenly believed she would inherit his estate under terms of their prenuptial agreement.

In May, Kouri Richins was found guilty on misdemeanor charges of assaulting her other sister-in-law shortly after her husband’s death. Amy Richins told the judge that Kouri Richins had punched her in the face during an argument over access to her brother’s safe.

In addition to aggravated murder, assault and drug charges, Kouri Richins has been charged with mortgage fraud, forgery and insurance fraud for allegedly forging loan applications and fraudulently claiming insurance benefits after her husband’s death.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

A few stories about the Tangerine Tyrant caught my eye today, and they all point to his increasing desperation - so I figured I’d go around the horn and celebrate his continuing dissipation.

First: Criminal Defendant and Adjudicated Rapist Donald Trump yesterday predicted a “bloodbath” if he didn’t get reelected, and the media quickly devolved into outlets condemning his use of violent rhetoric and others - Fox and Newsmax - concern trolling over how he was talking specifically about the automobile industry. So, whatever. If you’re interested in parsing the event along those lines, have at it - but I think there’s a more interesting, deeply indicative phenomenon just below the surface that speaks not just to Trump’s mentality but that of his whole bonkers cult.

If you’re looking for the atavistic pull of Donald Trump on his followers, it’s in his power to do whatever the hell he wants and face no consequences. NO ONE can tell him what to do. NO ONE can keep him from attacking whomever he wants. NO ONE can prevent him from sating his desires. NO ONE.

Now, we know that’s not true - as evidenced by his exile to Mar-a-Lago for the past three years, but it’s part of the mystique. In a lot of ways, it makes sense if you look at his cult following - people who are, by and large, deeply disempowered and enraged at a culture that is stripping away their traditional privileges and social entitlements. They WANT Trump to keep shitting the punch bowl as a sort of wish fulfillment of their own stifled rage. Maybe they can’t rape the woman they want to rape or kill the immigrants they hate for speaking Spanish or Hindi at the Gas-n-Sip – but they sure as hell can dream about it when Trump gives a cross-burner of a speech. That’s all standard form.

But what we saw last night - and in the fascist outrage-trolling today - was something new. It’s been creeping into the 2024 election cycle here and there, but yesterday, it entirely broke through, and it’s this: NOT EVEN TRUMP’S BRAIN IS ALLOWED TO CENSOR TRUMP’S MOUTH WHEN IT COMES TO RAGE AND ANGER.

Look, Trump KNOWS that using words like “bloodbath” is going to cost him non-MAGA voters. He knows that calling people “vermin” is going to hurt his chances of navigating the very narrow path ahead if he hopes to return to the White House. Yet, he can’t stop himself. Trump is unable to act in his own easily achieved best interest if it means not being a monster, and while it’s lamentable that he’s bringing such hatred to our national debate, I encourage him to keep it up.

You be you, Donald!

Every single time you let your id out of its box, it’s like sending America an unsolicited, mushroom-shaped dick-pic. Sure, your fans are going to love it, but the rest of us grossed the fuck out.

So, please! Rage on!

-----

Second:

Trump’s lawyers in the NYS civil fraud case settlement submitted a filing today that it is “a practical impossibility” for Trump to post a bond for the half-billion dollars he needs to cough up in order to appeal the decision. According to reports, he approached 30 different surety companies, and they all turned him down. Why they would do that might indicate what’s got him tuned to “bloodbath” and “vermin” levels of rage.

It might be a simple point, but it bears a paragraph of explanation.

Most folks who don’t work in the NYC real estate market – or any real estate market – might think, “Hey, he’s a rich guy. Why not just sell a few of those buildings he owns? They’ve gotta be worth a pretty penny.”

Or, alternatively, “Why won’t anyone take Trump Tower as collateral for a loan?”

The simple answer is he doesn’t really OWN any of that shit outright. It’s ALL mortgaged to the hilt. To get a clearer picture of this, let’s look at 40 Wall Street – one of Trump’s “prestige” properties.

The numbers are a bit hard to come by, but an hour of reading suggests that the building is presently worth about $200 million. Mind you, part of the fraud charges – now proven – included his valuation of the building in 2015 at over $750 million, but it’s just not worth that at all.

So, take the $200 million as a starting point and note that Trump’s mortgage on the property, according to a Bloomberg report in November of 2023, stands at $122 million. So, if Trump were to liquidate his stake in the property fully, he’d only net about $78 million – and that is BEFORE the capital gains taxes, NYS taxes, and NYC taxes on the sale. According to a few articles I’ve scanned this evening, that would be up to about 40% of his earnings. That means, even if he drops one of his most precious assets, he would only raise about $50 million.

He owes TEN TIMES that number by next week.

Play that out another round, and realize that if Trump tried to sell ten or twenty office buildings in NYC all at once, the price of ALL of them would plummet to fire-sale prices.

He’s fucked. Moreover, he knows it and is desperate to find a way out.

-----

This brings us to news item number three: The Return of Paul Manafort.

News leaked today that Trump is considering bringing convicted felon and former campaign manager Paul Manafort back into his 2024 bid for the White House. Manafort, primarily due to his complete lack of a moral center, would be a tremendous asset for Trump. He’s a solid political operative, but what he REALLY brings to the table is a direct line back to the Russian oligarchy and their money. That, obviously, is an enormous threat to national security, and I’ve got to hope that the intelligence services in DC and around the world will be on heightened alert for any covert – or overt – entreaties to Putin or his cronies for a loan. I’ve got to hope there are ways of making such entreaties known to the public through selective leaks if nothing else.

But that brings us back to observation number one.

Trump knows that going to Putin for help with his financial difficulties if it becomes known, would be a dagger to the heart for his chances of returning to the White House. Yet, if I’m right, he will be unable to stop himself when it comes to finding a fix for his hemorrhaging empire. His brain will tell him this is a terrible idea, but it won’t matter. NO ONE is allowed to stop Donald Trump from doing whatever the hell he wants to do – not even Donald Trump.

In 1776, James Otis, a thoughtful supporter of the Revolutionary War, noted about politics, “When the pot boils, the scum will rise.”

Trump is proving that to be true, even when there’s only one evil, arrogant, rapist bastard in the soup. He’s so screwed.

Love to you all.

Michael J. Tallon

[longwindedbore]

No! Legislators should know better. The job of the county assessor is to assign a reasonable valuation for a property. Assessment is not to be used to punish people.

DJT has paid a reasonable amount of property tax on the property given the independent valuations which took into account the covenants restricting its use and occupancy as an Historical Landmark as well as those additional restrictions allowing Donald to use it as a private club or whatever.

DJT’s fraud in the New York case is that he and his organization deliberately misrepresented the nature of the covenants and restrictions when validating the property for purposes of obtaining a loan. Repeatedly. For 20+ properties.

DJT lost the Summary Jusgment because Statute and Case Law were the basis of rejecting each and every counter argument of caveat emptor his attorneys presented. Counter arguments were also denied on appeal. Twice.

Jeff Bezos could decide tomorrow that he can’t live without owning Mar-A-Lago or other Trump property and buys one for $2 billion.

It would not affect that the Trump organization committed fraud each and every time it knowingly FAILED TO DISCLOSE material facts.

If such a purchase occurred, Trump would walk away with a lot of cash but would not be able to do business in New York State.

Trump’s stupidity is that he kept ALL his properties in one New York based umbrella trust instead of incorporating separately in Delaware or in a bunch of different States. Which is how it’s the NY AG who is seizing his assets worldwide.

Not that he would have escaped litigation. All 50 States and the Federal government have these ‘blue sky laws’ like the one Trump is fighting and States/Federal are constantly prosecuting businesses for violating them.

We never hear about these cases because they just aren’t the kind of Infotainment that the Media covers…unless it’s infotainment celebrity like Trump.

[popolitiko]

Could Donald Trump go bankrupt?

He owes more than half a BILLION dollars.

Chris Cillizza Feb 17, 2024

Donald Trump owes more than a half billion in legal fees. Can he afford to pay them? Answers below! 👇

Here’s what Donald Trump currently owes in legal penalties:

$454 million to the state of New York

$88.3 million to E. Jean Carroll

$400,000 to the New York Times

That’s $542 million. Which, is, um, a lot. (That’s a technical term.)

The real question here — in the wake of a series of adverse legal ruling for the de facto Republican presidential nominee — is actually two questions:

How much is Trump actually going to have to pay?

How much does Trump actually have?

Let’s answer those questions one at a time.

On the “how much does he have to pay” question, it’s bit complicated.

Trump has already put $5.5 million in escrow — the amount (plus interest) that he was initially told to pay Carroll following a jury decision that he was liable for sexually assaulting her. (Carroll alleged that Trump raped her in a high-end department store in the 1990s.)

Trump is faced with having to do the same for the $83.3 million he was penalized for defaming Carroll. If he doesn’t want to pay that large sum, there is another option. As the Associated Press notes:

“He could secure a bond and pay only a portion up front — though that option would come with interest and fees and likely require some form of collateral. Trump would have to find a financial institution willing to front him the money.”

Then there is the legal payment required in the wake of Judge Arthur Engoron’s decision Friday that Trump had knowingly committed fraud for decades by overestimating his assets to secure favorable loan conditions from banks.

Engoron said Trump is liable for $355 million — plus interest on that money. New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the case, said that the interest adds up to $99 million.

Trump will, of course, appeal that ruling. But, Trump will have to either a) come up with the total ($454 million) or secure a bond for the total within the next 30 days, according to the New York Times.

Which leads us to the second question: How much money does Trump actually have (and how much of that is in ready cash that he could pay off such large judgments against him?)

According to Forbes, as of September 2023, Trump was worth $2.6 billion. Most of that wealth is tied up in the various real estate properties he owns. Forbes also estimated that Trump had “cash/liquid assets” of $426 million.

That is broadly consistent with what Trump himself has said he has in cash. In an April 2023 deposition with James, Trump estimated that he had $400 million in cash — which he called “a lot for a developer.”

Which is, um, less than he currently owes. (Math!)

But, liberals should hold off rejoicing over Trump’s impending bankruptcy. Because, remember, that Forbes estimates that he is worth more than $2.6 billion. Which means he has the wealth to pay these fines — even if he doesn’t have the available cash on hand this minute.

So, how could Trump get the money he needs? A few ways:

Get a loan. It’s not immediately clear what financial institution would loan Trump several hundred million dollars after he was just found guilty of lying to banks about his wealth but, hey, who knows?

Sell stuff. Trump could sell stocks and the like or — and this would probably hurt him more — a building or three. (Forbes estimated that Trump has $690 million in New York City real estate.)

Raise the money. Trump can’t use money raised for his presidential campaign to pay legal bills and penalties but he CAN use money raised for affiliated super PACs to do so. Last year alone, Trump used $50 million(!) in donations to pay his legal bills.

So, Trump isn’t going to be declaring bankruptcy any time soon. But, there is NO doubt that the current legal penalties hanging over his head badly complicate his financial future.

Especially when you consider what else we know about Trump’s finances. Thanks to the New York Times, which got a hold of a decade’s worth of tax information for Trump, we know a few things.

First, Trump has benefited — hugely — from a $72.9 million tax refund that the Internal Revenue Service is currently auditing.

Second, Trump is personally responsible for more than $400 million in loans — the vast majority of which are set to come due by 2025.

Add it all up and it’s clear — even to this non-accountant — that Trump’s personal wealth is going to take a MAJOR hit.

Which is not an insignificant thing. As I have noted before in this space, Trump derives a huge amount of self-definition and pride from being wealthy.

It is WHO he is. It’s why he spends so much time inflating his wealth and talking about it.

Losing a chunk of that money, which Trump now seems nearly-certain to do, will have a real psychological impact on him. Even if he doesn’t have to declare bankruptcy. Again.

[filmstudentrambles]

AI Works Perfectly and We All Die in the End

Horror films frequently explore themes of technological horror. That technological advancements doom humankind to terror and extinsion. We see these themes in so many films. M3GAN is one such film. The android, M3GAN, is equipped with artificial intelligence, allowing it to learn and evolve. It appears at first, that this is another case of ‘AI becomes sentient and immediately turns to violence’. However, that’s not quite accurate.

M3GAN is a 4-foot android that was created to be a prototype of a new line of children’s toys. The great benefit of gifting your child a M3GAN is that the android will do all the ‘dirty work’ of parenting. M3GAN will remind your child to wash their hands, read bedtime stories, entertain your child, educate your child, and more. It frees the parent up to do much more important stuff. This mirrors much of the marketing around AI in our world. Alexa saves you so much time by taking care of all those pesky domestic chores that come with living. AI can write your papers, create art, manage your house, and drive your car. Technology companies promise that these technological advances will give you more free time, but we know that isn’t true. Technology, especially AI has minimal positive implications for the working class. Its real benefit is for the capitalist who continue to demand more from labours around the globe. M3GAN is no different. The doll doesn’t benefit parents as the film shows. It alienates children and parents obstructing meaningful human connections. In discussions about AI, it’s important to remember that this is a feature and not a bug. AI works perfectly and we all die in the end.

Resisting technological advancements is not a viable solution. The technology is here and it will continue to advance at increasingly rapid rates. What our fear about AI shows is that we consciously or subconsciously recognize the system is flawed and AI exposes those flaws in vivid details. The horrors of AI are here and it is not robots shooting lasers. AI is already used by the government and various social services. What happens is AI does exactly what it is supposed to and working class people lose access to the social benefits they need to survive. We understand that certain people are privileged in the current system. Incorporating AI into an unfair system means that inequality will be perpetuated. When AI is used to flag fraud in health insurance claims, identify child abuse cases, or determine housing eligiblity, marginalized individuals suffer. We see this in practices like redlining. AI only realistically benefits the privileged. 

In the film, Cady, the 9-year-old child who is paired with M3GAN, represents the privileged who benefit from AI. It doesn’t matter that M3GAN killed the neighbor lady, because the android was protecting Cady. In the same way, it doesn’t matter that automation and AI disproprotionately flag poorer individuals for fraud, because wealthy investors are protected. This is the real horror of AI, it works perfectly and we all die in the end. 

The fear we feel towards AI comes from knowing that, for most of us, we do not have the level of privilege that insulates us from this system. In the way that a wood chipper doesn’t care about a human body, AI doesn’t care about you. It will never make exceptions for you, it will never offer you the benefit of the doubt. It will flag you for fraud, restrict your access to social safety nets, identify you as an unfit parent, and limit your ability to access loans and funding. We know that most of us are not Cady, we are the neighbor lady.

AI works perfectly and we still die in the end. This says more about the system we exist in than the technology we create. We can’t stop these advances. AI can be used as a tool to help all people, but only if we deliberately acknowledge the systems of privilege and oppression that exist. Our great fear is not AI, it is the system that allows for certain individuals to benefit at the great expense of others.

[boaringoldguy]

Trump Cannot Participate in Closing Arguments in NY Civil Trial, Judge Engoron Says

This is wrong in so many ways!

NTD

5–7 minutes

New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron indicated to attorneys on Jan. 10 that former President Donald Trump likely won’t participate in closing arguments for his civil fraud trial.

Emails posted to the court docket show Justice Engoron telling Trump’s attorney Chris Kise: “Not having heard from you by the third extended deadline (noon today),” I assume that Mr. Trump will not agree to the reasonable, lawful limits I have imposed as a precondition to giving a closing statement above and beyond those given by his attorneys, and that, therefore, he will not be speaking in court tomorrow.”

President Trump’s lawyers, who have already appealed unsuccessfully for a directed verdict on the grounds of prosecutorial bias, will make their case on Jan. 11.

The email chain shows Justice Engoron telling Mr. Kise repeatedly that he needed to state whether the former president would abide by limitations he sought to impose.

“As I have already indicated to you, if Mr. Trump wishes to speak … you will have to tell me NOW that he will agree to the limitations I have imposed, which go without saying and apply to everyone, and he will have to agree to do so tomorrow, on the record,” Justice Engoron said in an earlier Jan. 10 email to Mr. Kise, the New York attorney general’s office, and other Trump attorneys.

Justice Engoron initially approved the unusual request, saying he was “including to let everyone have his or her say.”

But he said Trump would have to limit his remarks to the boundaries that cover attorneys’ closing arguments: “commentary on the relevant, material facts that are in evidence, and application of the relevant law to those facts.”

He would not be allowed to introduce new evidence, “comment on irrelevant matters” or “deliver a campaign speech”—or impugn the judge, his staff, the attorney general, her lawyers, or the court system, the judge wrote.

Trump attorney Christopher Kise responded that those limitations were “fraught with ambiguities, creating the substantial likelihood for misinterpretation or an unintended violation.

At 11:40 a.m. ET, Mr. Kise told Justice Engoron that he was being “very unfair.”

“You are not allowing President Trump, who has been wrongfully demeaned and belittled by an out of control, politically motivated Attorney General, to speak about the things that must be spoken about,” he said.

Justice Engoron responded: “I won’t debate this yet again. Take it or leave it. Now or never. You have until noon, seven minutes from now. I WILL NOT GRANT ANY FURTHER EXTENSIONS.”

Justice Engoron had denied Mr. Kise’s request to postpone closing arguments after President Trump’s mother died.

In their closing arguments, Trump’s legal team is expected to emphasize critical points from the direct examination of such witnesses as Rosemary Vrablic, a former Deutsche Bank managing director closely involved in efforts to grow business between the bank and the Trump Organization, and Eli Bartov, an expert on real estate accounting practices who spoke on the meaning of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) as applied to loans and insurance.

Since the trial began on Oct. 2, 2023, attorneys for New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office have attempted to build a case that in preparing SFCs to seek loans and insurance policies for Trump properties, members of the Trump Organization inflated the value of assets in a manner that involved conscious wrongdoing.

Throughout the government lawyers’ direct examination and cross-examination, they pulled up images on a courtroom screen of statements of financial conditions, emails, letters, contracts, and memoranda bearing the signatures of Mr. Donald Trump Jr., Mr. Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump, Mr. Weisselberg, Mr. McConney, and President Trump himself. The court heard witness after witness testify as to the content of conversations and email exchanges from as far back as 2012, and heard expert testimony about GAAP and whether the documents on the screen adhered to such norms and standards.

Ms. James, a Democrat, who had previously sought a $250 million settlement—almost one-tenth of President Trump’s estimated net worth of $2.6 billion—has announced that nothing less than $370 million will suffice as a penalty for inflated valuations of his assets.

Ms. James also seeks five-year bans on the former president’s sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., taking part in any real estate deals.

President Trump blames the attorney general for what he sees as a politically motivated prosecution of the GOP’s 2024 front-runner.

He has also argued that Ms. James is going after him without real legal ground as crime surges on New York’s streets, and that her actions will drive businesses out of New York and deter others from operating in the city.

The Associated Press and Michael Washburn contributed to this report.

From The Epoch Times