Trump Asks Appeals Court to Dismiss NY Fraud Case

A previous ruling had already thrown out a fine of more than $460 million.

(Left) President Donald Trump. (Right) New York Attorney General Letitia James. Brandon Bell; David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

President Donald Trump is asking a New York state court to fully dismiss fraud charges brought against him and his business associates by Attorney General Letitia James in 2022.

The New York Appellate Division’s First Judicial Department already overturned a fine of almost half a billion dollars against Trump in August 2025, but it allowed his conviction to stand.

His attorneys are asking that the guilty verdict and the entire case be thrown out and that court-ordered restrictions on the defendants’ ability to do business in New York be removed.

The case stems from hundreds of millions of dollars in loans that Trump took out between 2011 and 2021 in partnership with his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., along with other business associates.

Although the loans were paid back “fully and on time,” James alleged that Trump and his cohort had submitted financial disclosures with overestimated property values to obtain them. She sued for fraud.

Trump’s attorneys have alleged that those charges were politically motivated, citing statements by James, who ran for office on a platform of investigating and prosecuting Trump if she were elected.

They’ve also said that the charges shouldn’t have been brought in the first place, because some were beyond the period defined by the statute of limitations, and because James had no right to intervene in a private financial transaction after which neither party had complained.

An executive from one lender, Deutsche Bank, testified at trial that his organization didn’t rely on Trump’s estimation of his own net worth and would have given him the same interest rates if he had been worth only $100 million.

The prospect of future business with Trump’s other businesses made him a desirable partner to the bank, Trump’s attorneys wrote.

In February 2024, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron found Trump and his associates liable and ordered them to pay a penalty of $464,567,230.62.

After the hefty fine was thrown out in August 2025, James appealed to have it reinstated. The Epoch Times reached out to the attorney general’s office for comment but received no response.

The April 8 appeal is the latest wrinkle in the president and the attorney general’s tense relationship.

After retaking office in 2025, Trump urged the Justice Department to pursue criminal charges against James for alleged mortgage fraud. James alleged that those charges were politically motivated and retaliatory; a federal judge dismissed the case in November 2025, saying prosecutor Lindsey Halligan was illegally appointed.

“I remain fearless in the face of these baseless charges as I continue fighting for New Yorkers every single day,” she said at that time.

In January, a court ruled that U.S. Attorney John Sarcone had also been appointed invalidly, and it threw out subpoenas he’d issued to James regarding her investigations of Trump.