Court rules Trump University fraud lawsuit can proceed
A New York appeals court on Tuesday denied Donald Trump’s bid to toss out a lawsuit accusing the GOP presidential front-runner’s Trump University of fraud, according to multiple reports.
New York’s appellate division ruled in a unanimous 4-0 decision that the state’s attorney general’s office is “authorized to bring a cause of action for fraud,” The New York Daily News reported.
{mosads}Lawyers for Trump and his now-defunct school had argued that the status of limitations had expired, according to the Daily News.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman charges that Trump University, which operated between 2004 and 2010, deceived students into paying unfair tuition fees.
“Although Trump University speakers represented that the three-day seminar would teach students all that they needed to know to be successful real estate investors, the instructors at those three-day seminars then engaged in a ‘bait and switch,’ telling students that they needed to attend yet another seminar for an additional $5,000 to learn more about particular lenders,” the suit claims.
“Their deceptive and unlawful practices intentionally misled over 5,000 individuals nationwide, including over 600 New Yorkers, into paying as much as $35,000 each to participate in live seminars and mentorship programs with the promise of learning Donald Trump’s real estate investing techniques.”
Schneiderman’s suit additionally alleges Trump University distorted its status as a legally chartered university and that Trump personally selected its instructors, the newspaper added.
Trump’s rivals for the Republican presidential nomination have begun using the lawsuit to attack him in recent weeks.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), for example, raised concerns last month about the GOP front-runner becoming the party’s standard-bearer with a lawsuit hanging over his head.
Conservative Solutions PAC, a super-PAC backing Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), also released ads in February featuring litigants.
Trump struck back on Monday, calling the spots “misleading” and arguing that they should be immediately retracted.