A New York judge has ruled that Cushman & Wakefield, one of the world’s largest real estate companies, has violated its own rules to appease the Trump Organization and the former US president’s chronic practice of inflating the value of his property.
Judge Arthur F. Engoron’s surprising allegations were included in his court order Wednesday, in which he formally ordered Cushman & Wakefield to hand over documents to the New York Attorney General’s office.
New York Attorney General Leticia James is investigating the Trump organization over what prosecutors have described as a long-term model for driving the value of golf resorts and buildings in California and New York as part of a banking and insurance fraud scheme.
In his warrant, the judge said he had personally reviewed sensitive privacy documents in his courtrooms that showed Cushman & Wakefield employees had mocked him – a damn revelation that could open the global corporation to conspiracy charges along with the Trump Organization.
“This court has reviewed a number of documents behind closed doors, showing that C&W has not been consistent in adhering to its internal quality control practices when conducting assessments on behalf of the Trump Organization,” he wrote.
By enforcing AG’s subpoenas, Engoron’s court order adds key support to the New York investigation, which is heating up in what could be the final phase of the investigation. When the investigation is over, James will be able to sue the Trump Organization and others for violations of state business laws – and seek to close them permanently and seek monetary damages.
“It is within OAG’s remit to examine C&W’s assessments to determine whether C&W has properly and accurately disclosed to regulators and other government bodies whether its internal quality controls have been met,” Engoron added.
Sawnie A. McEntire, a Texas attorney representing the real estate firm, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In its many years of investigation, the AG office has already amassed hundreds of thousands of documents describing how Trump rated his Trump Tower on New York’s Fifth Avenue, his private golf club and the wooded Seven Springs mansion north of the city and his other golf club. near Los Angeles.
Some of the evidence, made public by James in January, revealed Trump’s ridiculous efforts to inflate the value of his property, including a case in which he lied by simply tripling the size of his now huge three-story penthouse at Trump Tower. The company, twice the impeachment of the former president, repeatedly turned to Cushman & Wakefield to assess the value of these properties.
Investigators say they need additional evidence from Cushman & Wakefield to see if the company has played fast and lost to other customers. The company withdrew, arguing that passing on this type of proprietary data to law enforcement would violate the corporation’s right to keep it secret.
In court on Monday, AG’s lawyers described in detail how their investigators caught Cushman & Wakefield employees lying in ways that would benefit the Trump Organization.
Assistant Attorney General Austin Thompson described how the company’s appraisers routinely abdicated their responsibilities and simply did not do everything the Trump Company and its outside lawyer, Sherry Dylan, demanded of them. He cites two cases in Los Angeles and Seven Springs where appraisers said they created value appraisals that took into account planned real estate development deadlines – except that appraisers simply filled in the blanks, as they were told.
“In both cases, a Cushman evaluator appears to have drawn up the development schedule and falsely attributed it to someone else,” Thompson told the court on Monday.
Thompson said that when investigators sought the necessary records from the company, she responded in a way that was “irreconcilable and steadfast” – she handed over documents without any explanation or context, leaving lawyers with no idea how to arrange the evidence.
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