A reversal in New York Trump tax fraud investigation

Advancing an investigation likely to trail the outgoing Commander-in-Chief long into his post-presidency, a Manhattan judge ordered the Trump Organization and its attorney to turn over documents to New York Attorney General Letitia James about an engineer for a 212-acre Westchester estate.

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Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron, who previously found those documents to be privileged, said his prior ruling “lost sight of the forest for the trees,” reciting his decision following more than 1.5 hours of oral arguments.

The ruling forces the Trump Organization to divulge reams of information about engineer Ralph Mastromonaco, who was retained to develop the Seven Springs estate, one of four properties currently subject to a broad investigation into whether Eric Trump and various corporate entities improperly inflated assets to obtain tax benefits.

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In 1995, Trump Organization subsidiary Seven Springs LLC bought the estate for $7.5 million.

Two decades later, Trump agreed to establish a “conservation easement” to provide a habitat for rare salamanders and bats in 2015, assessing the value of that property’s feature at $21.1 million the next year.

Attorney General James, a Democrat who has been investigating this and other properties since March 2019, sent her assistants to court on Tuesday to encourage Judge Engoron to revisit a ruling that limited the evidence available her probe. Engoron had found in October that Mastromonaco’s communications with Trump Organization and its land-use attorney Charles Martabano were privileged.

“There is no accountant-client privilege, and there is no engineer-professional privilege,” Assistant Attorney General Eric Haren observed.

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Judge Engoron has kept the attorney general’s investigation moving at a brisk pace, previously denying Eric Trump’s prior request to delay his deposition until after the election. The president’s son was in the hot seat in October.

  Law and Crime