Former US President Donald Trump ‘grossly’ inflated the value of his assets, including his Scottish and Florida golf clubs, according to the New York Attorney General.
A civil lawsuit filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan seeks a $250 million (£220m) judgement and a prohibition on Trump and three of his adult children from leading any company or buying property in New York.
It claims that the Trumps fraudulently convinced banks to lend money to the Trump Organization on more favourable terms than deserved.
Trump Turnberry, the golf club in Scotland, was valued at nearly $127 million, but the lawsuit said it has made a loss ever since it opened in 2017.
“As a result, using values for the golf course ranging between $123 million and $126.8 million based on employing the Fixed Asset Scheme is materially false and misleading; the golf course should have been valued at a much lower figure,” it said.
The lawsuit also claimed the former president’s Florida estate and golf resort, Mar-a-Lago, was valued as high as $739 million, but should have been valued at around $75 million.
Mr Trump also allegedly claimed his Fifth Avenue apartment in New York was more than 30,000 sq ft, when it was in fact about a third of that.
The Trumps deny any wrongdoing and claim that the Attorney General, a Democrat, is using her office to bring down the former US President.
The lawsuit is the culmination of a three-year civil investigation by the Attorney General Letitia James. If the case goes to trial and Mr Trump loses, a judge could impose financial penalities and restrict the former president’s business operations in New York.
