Former President Donald Trump blasted “DERANGED” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron after he concluded Trump committed fraud and offered a shockingly low estimation of the value of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
“The widespread, radical attack against me, my family, and my supporters has now devolved to new, un-American depths, at the hands of a DERANGED New York State Judge, doing the bidding of completely biased and corrupt ‘Prosecutor,’ Letitia James, who ran for office based on a ‘GET TRUMP’ platform, before even knowing anything about me,” Trump said in a lengthy statement following Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron’s controversial ruling, in which he concluded the former president committed fraud, inflating the value of his properties.
Among those is Mar-a-Lago, which the judge shockingly estimated at around just $18 million.
According to the New York Post:
He cited a basic Palm Beach Assessor valuation that ranged from $18 million to $28 million between 2011 and 2021, failing to take into consideration the fair market value. This valuation is a far cry from Trump’s 1985 purchase price of $10 million, a meager $8 million less than what the judge declared it was worth today.
To put it in perspective, a 2-acre wooded lot at 1980 S. Ocean Blvd., just 5 minutes from Mar-a-Lago, is currently listed for an eye-popping $150 million. Mar-a-Lago, situated at 1100 S. Ocean Blvd., dwarfs this lot tenfold and operates as a commercial business with around 500 members as part of the golf club.
That is not the only viable comparison, either. A quick search on Zillow shows nearby properties for sale, far exceeding $18 million. A 2.3-acre plot of land close by is for sale for a whopping $200 million, and for further perspective, in 2018, Forbes estimated Trump’s 20-acre estate to be worth around $160 million.
The Post spoke to one “prominent” real estate broker in the area, who told the outlet, “If that property were on the market today, I would list it at around $300 million, minimum … at least.”
Trump concluded that the judge’s action “is a refutation of my status as the leading Candidate for President of the United States, including with a substantial lead over Joe Biden.”
Further, Trump said it serves as a reminder that the left will “stop at nothing in trying to prevent me, and the American people, from winning the 2024 Presidential Election.”
Trump said this type of political prosecution should not happen in the U.S., regardless of party, and he emphasized that “Corrupt and Highly Political Prosecutors and Judges are getting more and more desperate and dangerous” as Trump performs strongly in the polls.
Trump then addressed the Mar-a-Lago estimation more thoroughly:
The New York State Attorney General went before a Highly Politicized Democrat Judge, who refused allowing the case to go to the Commercial Division, where it belonged, to simply rule, despite all of the evidence on the contrary, that I committed fraud, which is both ridiculous and untrue. As an example, this Democrat Operative valued Mar-a-Lago, the most spectacular and valuable property in Palm Beach, Florida, to be worth as low as $18 Million, when in actuality, it could be worth almost 100 times that amount. He hated everything about me at a level that I have never seen before.
Trump later added that his “Civil Rights have been violated,” urging another court — an Appellate Court, “whether Federal or State,” to reverse “this horrible, un-American decision.”
READ Trump’s full statement below: