- Cushman & Wakefield, Donald Trump's longtime appraisers, was held in contempt of court in NY Tuesday.
- The real estate services giant must pay $10,000 each day it fails to comply with a subpoena for documents.
- The Manhattan judge who set the fine presides over NY Attorney General Letitia James' probe into the Trump Organization.
The Manhattan judge who is presiding over the New York attorney general's investigation into the Trump Organization on Tuesday found longtime Donald Trump appraisers Cushman & Wakefield in contempt of court and ordered they pay a $10,000-a-day fine — their penalty for "cavalierly" blowing a deadline for turning over documents last week.
The judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, set the identical daily fine when Trump himself failed to fully comply with subpoenas for documents in the investigation. Trump has had to forfeit a $110,000 check, his cumulative fine, to the AG's office before his contempt order was lifted.
In Cushman's case, the fine will begin to accumulate on July 7, the judge wrote in an order that pointedly criticized the company for having "only itself to blame if it chose to treat the looming deadlines cavalierly."
The subpoeana for the yet-filed documents had been filed back in September, and after repeated failed court challenges by Cushman, had come due on Wednesday.
On Friday, lawyers for the AG asked Engoron to respond to the missed deadline — and to Cushman's request for a two-week extention — with an "enforcement" action instead.
The documents that Cushman has yet to turn over must comply with these two requests, according to the subpoena: the first is for, "All documents and communications concerning any work performed for Donald J. Trump or the Trump Organization." The second request is for "All documents and communications concerning any work performed concerning property or assets owned by Donald J. Trump or the Trump Organization."
In asking for more time, Cushman had complained that it was behind in parsing out the relevant communications from a database of 72 million pages of emails from current and former employees.
"This Court finds that Cushman & Wakefield's willful non-compliance with Court-ordered deadlines warrants imposing sanctions to coerce compliance," the judge wrote.
"Accordingly, this Court hereby finds Cushman & Wakefield, Inc., to be in contempt of Court and orders that, commencing July 7, 2022, Cushman & Wakefield shall be fined the sum of $10,000, to be paid to [the Office of the Attorney General], for every day that it fails to fully comply with OAG's subpoeanas.
A rep for Cushman said the contempt order "demonstrates a failure to understand the extreme lengths Cushman has gone to in order to comply with the Court's order."
Hundreds of thousands of pages and over 650 appraisals have been turned over since February, the rep added.
"Cushman disagrees with any suggestion that the firm has not exercised diligence and good faith in complying with the Court's order, and we will be appealing this decision," he said.
