A New York judge ruled that Donald Trump must pay $354.9 million in penalties for fraudulently inflating his net worth to deceive lenders, marking a significant legal blow to the former U.S. president’s real estate empire. 

Justice Arthur Engoron, following a contentious three-month trial in Manhattan, also imposed a three-year ban on Trump serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation. Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, pledged to appeal the decision.

Engoron’s sharply worded ruling revoked his previous order from September, which called for the dissolution of companies overseeing Trump’s real estate holdings. 

Instead, he appointed an independent monitor and compliance director to supervise Trump’s businesses. In his ruling, Engoron criticized Trump and other defendants for their lack of remorse, describing their behavior as “bordering on pathological.”

The lawsuit, spearheaded by New York Attorney General Letitia James, accused Trump and his family businesses of overstating his net worth by up to $3.6 billion annually over a decade to secure favorable loan terms. 

Trump denounced the lawsuit as a politically motivated attack by James, a Democrat.

In response to the ruling, Trump lambasted Engoron and James on social media, decrying the case as “ELECTION INTERFERENCE” and a “WITCH HUNT.” 

The judge’s decision also barred Trump and his companies from seeking loans from New York-chartered financial institutions for three years, citing their history of legal issues, including a 2022 conviction for criminal tax fraud by the Trump Organization.

The judge ordered Trump’s adult sons, Don Jr. and Eric, to pay $4 million each in penalties, while former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud in a separate case, was fined $1 million and permanently barred from managing any New York company’s finances.