NEW YORK — Donald Trump returned to his Manhattan fraud trial on Tuesday, lashing out at authorities outside the courtroom and sitting stone-faced inside it as a real estate appraiser testified it was “inaccurate and inappropriate” for the Trump Org to credit him for its lousy math.
Instead of a reunion with his former right-hand man turned chief nemesis Michael Cohen — whose testimony has been delayed per a medical issue — Trump spent most of the day listening to dense testimony that tore apart assurances made by his top executives about his company’s business deals.
In statements shown in court tallying Trump’s worth between 2013 and 2018, former Trump Org controller Jeff McConney cited advice Doug Larson gave him over the phone in breaking down the methodology used to assign astronomical price tags to assets, including Trump’s Wall Street skyscraper.
But Larson, the executive director of Cushman & Wakefield when he dealt with Trump’s company, said the call never happened. He denied working “in conjunction” with Trump, McConney, or anyone at the company to value the assets, contrary to what McConney claimed.
“It’s inappropriate and inaccurate,” Larson said when confronted with one of the statements. “I should have been told, and an appraisal should have been ordered.”
As Trump sat hunched over the defense table, attorney general lawyer Mark Ladov pulled up paperwork showing how the Trump Org ignored math that the appraiser did do for one of Trump’s lenders.
After Larson valued 40 Wall St. as worth $540 million in 2016, the company tacked on 35% more value in that year’s financial statement, recording Trump’s neo-Gothic skyscraper as worth $735.4 million.
Larson said he had nothing to do with that valuation, despite Trump execs saying it was based on his advice.