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For the past month, Mar-a-Lago has dominated the headlines amid a high-stakes dispute between the Justice Department and former President Donald Trump over a criminal investigation into government records once stored at his South Florida home.
On Wednesday, the West Palm Beach estate came into play once more on a separate, newly perilous front in the former president’s legal battles.
In a wide-ranging lawsuit, the New York attorney general’s office accused Trump, his three eldest children, and namesake business of vastly overstating their assets as part of a years-long fraud scheme. Invoking the title of Trump’s 1987 memoir and business-advice book, Attorney General Letitia James said: « Claiming to have money that you do not have does not amount to the art of the deal; it’s the art of the steal. »
Her office’s 280-page lawsuit identified 23 assets — among them, Mar-a-Lago.
In financial statements, James said, Trump « blatantly ignored legal restrictions » on the use of his Mar-a-Lago property that materially affected its value. Trump valued his South Florida estate « on the false premise that it sat on unrestricted property and could be developed for residential use, » she said.
But James alleged that Trump knew Mar-a-Lago was subject to « onerous » restrictions, having personally signed deeds « sharply restricting » changes to the property. Trump also donated his residential development rights in an effort to receive a tax deduction and lower his property taxes, she said.
The deeds also require Trump to donate more than 23 percent of Mar-a-Lago’s value to a historic preservation trust if he ever sells the property.
