During the first day of a fraud trial against Donald Trump, his business enterprise and some of his associates in New York, the court heard testimony about alleged discrepancies in the value of his eldest daughter's penthouse apartment.
Donald Bender, a former accountant for Donald Trump, said he had "from time to time" noted discrepancies in his finances, recalling on one occasion that the valuation given for the Trump Park Avenue flat in Manhattan was different to the price offered to Ivanka Trump to buy it outright, according to CNN.
The lawsuit brought by the New York Attorney General alleges that the Trump Organization had given a valuation of the apartment in 2011 and 2012 that was "approximately two and a half times as much as the option price" offered to his daughter—$20.8 million compared to $8.5 million.
The ongoing trial will determine the outstanding allegations against Donald Trump and his named associates after Judge Arthur Engoron ruled last week that they had overvalued several of the former president's properties—including his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, and his triplex in Manhattan at the Trump Tower—for financial gain.
Judge Engoron will hear arguments on charges including whether Donald Trump and the other defendants falsified business records after fraudulently overvaluing his worth, issued false financial statements, and committed insurance fraud. Donald Trump has denied any wrongdoing and described the case as politically motivated.
Newsweek approached Christopher Kise, a lawyer for the former president, via email for comment on Tuesday.
On Monday, Bender said that it was not part of his role to audit Trump's financial statements, but that he had altered the asset's value on two different occasions, CNN reported.
Ivanka Trump was listed as a witness in the New York Attorney General's prosecution case in court filings prior to the trial, having previously been named as a co-defendant alongside Donald Trump, his adult sons, and various associates.
A court order filed on June 27 this year dismissed Ivanka Trump as a co-defendant as the claims against her were "accrued prior to...February 2016," and that she had not been party to a 2021 tolling agreement between the New York Attorney General and the Trump Organization extending the period of statutory limitations on the claims.
The move to becoming a witness in the case against Donald Trump "usually indicates some form of cooperation," an attorney previously told Newsweek, leaving open the potential that Ivanka Trump could give potentially damaging evidence against her family at the trial.
Donald Trump and his sons responded with incredulity to Engoron's summary judgment, which ordered that some of their business licenses in New York be rescinded over the years-long fraud and that the companies that own his properties be handed over to independent receivers.
Donald Trump's lawyers have vowed to appeal the decision and took issue with the figures used to determine that the properties had been overvalued during the first day of the trial. The former president himself appeared in court on Monday in order to, as he put it, "fight for my name and reputation."
