Court slams 3-year business ban, $355m fine on Trump – Newstrends
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Court slams 3-year business ban, $355m fine on Trump

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Former president Donald Trump

Court slams 3-year business ban, $355m fine on Trump

A New York judge, on Friday, ordered former United States President, Donald Trump, to pay $355 million over fraud allegations. The court also banned him from running companies in the state for three years.

Trump almost certain to be the Republican presidential nominee this November was found liable for unlawfully inflating his wealth and manipulating the value of properties to obtain favourable bank loans or insurance terms.

Trump’s defence lawyer, Alina Habba, called the ruling a “manifest injustice” and vowed to appeal.

As the case was civil, not criminal, there was no threat of imprisonment. But Trump said ahead of the ruling that a ban on conducting business in New York state would be akin to a “corporate death penalty.”

Trump, facing 91 criminal counts in other cases, has seized on his legal woes to fire up supporters and denounce his likely opponent, President Joe Biden, claiming that court cases are “just a way of hurting me in the election.”

However, Judge Arthur Engoron said the financially shattering penalties are justified by Trump’s behaviour.

“Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological,” Engoron said of Trump and his two sons, who were also defendants, in his scathing ruling.

“They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money… Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff. Yet, defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways,” he added, referring to the perpetrator of a massive Ponzi scheme.

Trump’s sons – Eric and Donald Trump Jr., were also found liable in the case and ordered to pay more than $4 million each, prompting Don Jr. to claim on social media that “political beliefs” had determined the outcome.

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Engoron also extended the mandate of retired judge Barbara Jones as an independent monitor of Trump’s business affairs, as well as ordering the appointment of an Independent Director of Compliance to the Trump Organization, with candidates to be nominated by Jones.

“Conditions that Judge Engoron imposed, such as having Judge Jones monitor the Trump companies, may be onerous. I do expect an appeal,” said Richmond University law professor Carl Tobias.

It was as a property developer and businessman in New York that Trump built his public profile which he used as a springboard into the entertainment industry and ultimately the presidency.

The judge’s order was a victory for New York state Attorney General Letitia James. She had sought $370 million from Trump to remedy the advantage he is alleged to have wrongfully obtained, as well as having him barred from conducting business in the state.

– Whirlwind legal week –
Trump has repeatedly attacked James, calling her a “lunatic,” as well as smearing Engoron, who decided the case without a jury, calling him “out of control.”

During highly technical testimony, the court heard that in one case Trump valued Mar-a-Lago, his exclusive Florida club, by using “asking prices,” rather than actual sales prices, for a comparison.

“From 2011-2015 defendants added a 30 per cent premium because the property was a ‘completed (commercial) facility,’” the prosecution said, arguing it unlawfully distorted its true value.

Trump’s lawyer Chris Kise said that “there is no clear and present evidence establishing intent by Donald Trump.”

Kise acknowledged there could be errors in Trump’s corporate financial statements but none “lead to the conclusion there was fraud.”

The ruling caps a whirlwind legal week for Trump.

Trump appeared in a New York court Thursday ahead of a criminal trial, where he faces charges of illegally covering up hush money payments. This will be the first criminal trial of a former US president.

Trump’s lawyers were also representing him in Atlanta, Georgia, where he is accused of conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost to Biden.

The prosecutor, in that case, responded with barely concealed outrage Thursday to efforts to have her removed from the case for inappropriate behaviour, testifying that her relationship with another lawyer on the case was aboveboard.

A separate trial on Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election is on hold in Washington, DC, while Trump attempts to assert presidential immunity.

The twice-impeached former president is due to go on trial in Florida in May on charges of taking troves of highly secret documents when he left the presidency and thwarting officials trying to recover them.

Just last month, another New York court ordered Trump to pay $83.3 million to compensate writer E. Jean Carroll, whom he was found in a civil trial to have sexually assaulted and then defamed.

Court slams 3-year business ban, $355m fine on Trump

AFP

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Ukraine receives bodies of 140 fallen soldiers from Russia

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Ukraine receives bodies of 140 fallen soldiers from Russia

Ukraine has received the bodies of 140 soldiers killed while trying to defend the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson from Russian attacks.

The authority responsible for prisoner-of-war matters said on Telegram on Friday that five bodies were from the Sumy section in northern Ukraine.

Russia has no Ukrainian territories under its control in this area; however, at the beginning of March, units of allegedly Russian volunteers fighting on the side of Ukraine made advances from the Sumy region into Russian territory.

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Once the identities of the dead have been established, they will be handed over to their relatives, the authority said.

The authority, known as the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, thanked the International Committee of the Red Cross for arranging the return.

Ukraine has been fending off a Russian invasion for over two years.

Despite the ongoing fighting, both sides regularly exchange the bodies of fallen soldiers and prisoners of war.

It is not yet known whether and how many dead soldiers Russia has received in return.

Ukraine receives bodies of 140 fallen soldiers from Russia

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Weeks after Iran’s attack, Israel discovers another massive surface-to-surface missile

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Weeks after Iran’s attack, Israel discovers another massive surface-to-surface missile

Weeks after missiles sent by Iran on April 14 rocked several parts of Israel, another debris of a surface-to-surface missile has been found in the southern part of the country.

According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the debris that was found by hikers in southern Israel, has been successfully evacuated.

“The effects of Iran’s attack on Israel can still be seen weeks after it occurred.

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“Earlier today, our troops removed the debris of a surface-to-surface missile intercepted during the Iranian attack. At the beginning of the week, the debris was found by hikers in southern Israel.

A complex removal, the process was made possible through advanced preparation by the Home Front Command and assistance from the IAF. During the process, the missile debris was cleared of hazardous materials, ” the IDF said in a post on Friday.

This is not the first missile discovered in the south since the attack. Similar missiles were discovered nearby in the Dead Sea area immediately after the major attack that Tehran launched against Israel, which included more than 300 suicide drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles.

Weeks after Iran’s attack, Israel discovers another massive surface-to-surface missile

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Nigerian man kills wife months after relocating to UK

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Olubunmi Abodund with late wife Taiwo
Nigerian man kills wife months after relocating to UK

Olubunmi Abodunde, a Nigerian living in the United Kingdom, reportedly beat his wife, Taiwo, to death with their son’s skateboard, according to the Daily Mail.

The couple, who had three children, arrived in the UK from Nigeria in 2022 and frequently feuded over reported relationships and financial disagreements.

According to the news outlet, 48-year-old Abodunde had been investigated by Suffolk Police several times for domestic abuse and was scheduled to stand trial for murder, but changed his plea to guilty on Wednesday after the jury was sworn in.

During the abuse, officers heard ‘a number of fringes’ inside the house, which Abodunde had entered despite bail restrictions imposed the day before that barred him from the residence due to another violent incident.

When they arrived 25 minutes later, they discovered Taiwo, 41, with her’skull bashed in’.

However, Judge Martyn Levett, sitting at Ipswich Crown Court, cautioned him that the only conceivable penalty was life imprisonment.

Suffolk Constabulary submitted itself to the Independent Office of Police Conduct, which confirmed that three officers were being investigated.

An IOPC spokesman said, “We advised two Suffolk officers that they are under investigation for potential breaches of the police standards of professional behaviour at the level of gross misconduct.

“We advised another officer that they are under investigation at the level of misconduct.”

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Abodunde has a history of mistrust and distrust towards his wife, accusing her of having affairs. He had been probed by police several times for alleged domestic abuse episodes prior to his wife’s murder.

He was detained on April 27 of last year, when police came to the couple’s house in Newmarket, Suffolk, and discovered Mrs. Abodunde with a split lip.

Later that day, he was released on police bail with the condition that he stay away from the marital residence and avoid approaching his wife.

However, after completing a night shift at Tesco, he returned home shortly after 9 a.m. to reportedly pick up his mobile phone.

At 9.20 a.m., two cops arrived to take Mrs. Abodunde’s testimony regarding the previous night’s incident, and they heard persistent banging inside.

But it wasn’t until 9.55 a.m. that they pushed their way in with permission from senior officers and discovered Mrs. Abodunde ‘clearly dead’ near the front entrance.

A post-mortem examination revealed that she had been throttled until unconscious, then stamped on until her ribs were fractured, before her husband used the skateboard to kill her off. The hits were so hard that the skateboard was ruined.

Prosecutor Simon Spence KC told the court that the hammering officers heard was most likely caused by Abodunde continuing to assault his wife after she was unconscious or dead.

Mrs. Abodunde worked as a care home assistant in Cambridge, but her husband, a civil engineer by training, was unable to find work and took shifts at Tesco and Wickes.

Following his arrest for the murder, Abodunde was taken to the hospital “because he appeared to have some sort of mental episode.”.

He later argued in a police statement that he had acted in self-defence, saying, “My wife has subjected me to physical abuse for a number of years.

“On November 28, we got into an argument. She ran at me with a knife. I grabbed the knife and cut my hand. I was defending myself.”

However, the court heard that, while he had a hand injury, no knife was found near his wife’s body.

Nneka Akudolu KC, defending, said the amount of violence was ‘completely out of character’ for her client and could have been influenced by the medicine he was on. However, she stated that no medical evidence would be supplied to back her assertion.

Following the court, Suffolk Police Detective Inspector Dan Connick stated, “This was an awful attack on a woman that has had a long-term impact on the community and, most importantly, on the victim’s family.”

“We are pleased that Taiwo’s family will no longer have to go through the pain of a trial.

“Our thoughts remain with Taiwo’s family and friends, and we hope this result will bring some small comfort to them.”

Nigerian man kills wife months after relocating to UK

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