Entrepreneur and media personality Kevin O’Leary blasted a New York judge’s controversial ruling this week that former President Donald Trump must pay $350 million in damages in his civil business fraud trial.
Judge Arthur Engoron ordered the former president and the Trump Organization to pay more than $350 million in damages and banned Trump from being able to hold any high-level positions in any company in the state of New York for three years. Similar punishments and smaller fines were also imposed on both of his sons.
O’Leary slammed the ruling in an interview with The New York Post, saying that it threatens the entire real estate industry.
“That fact that he was found guilty, you might as well find guilty every real estate developer on Earth,” O’Leary told the Post. “I don’t understand where someone got hurt … What developer doesn’t ask for the highest price valued for any building they built?”
O’Leary said that the ruling was “not healthy for the country” and that he wants it to be appealed and overturned “because it’s wrong for everybody that participates.”
“If this judgment sticks. Every developer must be jailed. They must be found guilty. They must be put out of business. You can’t do this to one another. It’s not about Trump,” he continued. “It’s appalling. It’s unjust. I would go as far to say it’s un-American.”
O’Leary said that New York was a “loser” as a result of the ruling because it could businesses in the state could decide to leave.
“We’re just stunned. You have no idea,” he added. “The shock wave sent through the real estate industry. Insane.”
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Other former top executives at the Trump Organization were also banned from “serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for a period of three years.”
The New York Times noted, however, that one of the judge’s rulings might be hard to get tossed: extending the court’s Independent Monitor oversight at the company for three years to watch for alleged suspicious activity.
The report noted that the monitor, Barbara Jones, has already cost the organization millions of dollars.
New York Democrat Attorney General Letitia James claimed that Trump victimized lenders by inflating his net worth to obtain more favorable terms from them.
The ruling comes after writer E. Jean Carroll was awarded $83 million from Trump earlier this year in a defamation case.
The former president, who is on the verge of officially wrapping up the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, also faces four criminal cases, including a federal case over his handling of classified material, a federal case over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, a case in Fulton County over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and a case from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office over his alleged hush money payments to an adult film star.
Related: Trump Fires Back After Judge Orders Him To Pay $350+ Million
