Bay Area Houston

This is weird. Just plain weird.

Bear with me for a bit of background. In 2019 Eric Dick ran for Houston City Council. I filed a complaint via the Texas Ethics Commission against Dick for not disclosing the cost of a mailer he sent for the election. The headline from the Houston Chronicle says it all about the result of that complaint: “Houston Republican fined $30K for mailers suggesting Black Democrats endorsed him“. The TEC also referred him to the State Bar. You can read the details here. Trust me. It’s long, but interesting!

Years later Dick decided to run for Harris County Treasurer. He lost in the primary but didn’t disclose $50,000 in donations from the extreme white wing group called Conservative Republicans of Texas. CRT was founded by Steve Hotze who was recently indicted on multiple felonies concerning voting fraud. His side kick, Jared Woodfill, is the president. Dick also failed to disclose over $100,000 in expenditures. So I filed another complaint.

Just like the previous complaint I expected the TEC is issue a small fine and Dic would promise not to do it again and just like the previous complaint that didn’t happen. Dick was fined $10,000 which is a pretty big fine by the TEC. The TEC wasn’t very happy with Dick, again:

The respondent has also acted in bad faith with Commission staff throughout the sworn complaint process. He not only ignored the Commission’s repeated attempts over the course of many months to contact him regarding the complaint, but when he finally submitted his response it was over eight months late.

Dick has since changed his long time Treasurer, has dropped out of the race for Harris County Department of Education, and has a new attorney representing him, Jared Woodfill. Dick has agreed to the Agreed Resolution.

As of today Dick has not paid the $30,000 fine. You can read the entire resolution here.

I took another one for the team and read the 39 page summary judgement issue by the Judge in the New York case against Trump and Trump properties.

Background.
Trump is being sued by the New York Attorney General Leticia James. The suit has been on going for a year. Yesterday the Judge issued a summary judgement, ie the Judge concluded that the evidence was so overwhelming, that a jury trial was not necessary. [based upon my vast legal experience from Facebook U.] The trial will continue to determine how much Trump will have to pay to New York State. Here are the Cliff Notes of the ruling:

• The Judge was not happy with Trump’s lawyers: Defendants’ conduct in reiterating these frivolous arguments is egregious. We are way beyond the point of “sophisticated counsel should have known better”; we are at the point of intentional and blatant disregard of controlling authority and law of the case.
• Judge sanctioned his attorney’s for their frivolous arguments of $7500 each.
• OAG has submitted conclusive evidence that between 2014 and 2021, defendants overvalued the assets reported in the SFCs [Statements of Financial Condition] between 17.27-38.51%; this amounts to a discrepancy of between $812 million and $2.2 billion dollars.
• Accordingly, defendants” motion for summary judgment dismissing every cause of action is denied in its entirety.
• The Trump Tower apartment in which Donald Trump resided for decades (the “TriplexTM) is 10,996 square feet. Between 2012- 2016, Donald Trump submitted SFCs [Statements of Financial Condition] falsely claiming that the Triplex was 30,000 square feet, resulting in an overvaluation of between $114-207 million dollars. “A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud.'”
• OAG demonstrates that as of 2012, no apartment sold in New York City had ever approached the price at which defendants valued the Triplex, noting that the highest overall sale at that time was $88 million for a Central Park West penthouse. The SFCs valued the Triplex at a staggering $180,000,000- $327,000,000fortheyears2012-2016.
• Notwithstanding receiving market values from professional appraisals in 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2014 valuing Seven Springs at or below $30 million, Donald Trump’s 2011 SFC reported the value to be $261 million, and his 2012, 2013 and 2014 SFCs reported the value to be $291 million.
• Trump Organization submitted SFCs that valued these rent-restricted units [Trump Park Avenue ] as if they were unencumbered, inflating the value of each unit between as much 700% (in 2014) and 64% (in 2021).
• Despite these appraisals, the 2011 and 2012 SFCs valued the Trump Organization’s interest in the property [40 Wall Street] at $524.7 million and $527.2 million, respectively, an overvaluation of more than $300 million each year.!
• Donald Trump’s SFCs for 2011-2021 value Mar-a-Lago at between $426,529,614 million and $612,110,496, an overvaluation of at least 2,300%, compared to the assessor’s appraisal. 
• AnApril2014appraisalvaluedthegolfclubportionofTNGC Briarcliffat$16,500,000;later that same year, Donald Trump valued the golf club portion of TNGC Briarcliff at $73,430,217, an inflation of more than 300%, in his SFC.
• Cushman & Wakefield appraised the value of 1290 AOA at $2 billion However, Donald Trump’s 2014 SFC calculated his 30% share based on a purported value of $3,078,338,462; his 2015 SFC was based on a purported value of $2,985,819,936; and his 2016 SFC was based on a purported value of $3,055,000,000. This resulted in overvaluations of Donald Trump’s 30% interest in 1290 AOA of between $205-$233 million dollars for those years.
• Improperly including these intra-organization deals [Real Estate Licensing Deals] resulted in an overvaluation of up to $224 million in 2014, $110 million in 2015, $120 million in 2016, $113 million in 2017, $115 million in 2018, $97 million in 2020, and $106 million in 2021.
• Defendants have continued to disseminate false and misleading information while conducting business. This ongoing flouting of this Court’s prior order, combined with the persistent nature of the false SFCs year after year, have demonstrated the necessity of canceling the certificates filed under GBL § 130, as the statute provides.
• The Trump Organization has been cancelled in New York