Thread: Trump University lawsuit closer to trial

Trump University lawsuit closer to trial

5-year-old case alleging “empty promises” continues amid Donald Trump’s run for president

By Kristina Davis | 3:31 p.m. Dec. 17, 2015

Real estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump (left) listens as Michael Sexton introduces him at a news conference in New York where he announced the establishment of Trump University. Bebeto Matthews

SAN DIEGO — As Donald Trump continues his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, two class-action lawsuits have been slowly moving through San Diego federal court for the last five years against the tycoon and his so-called real estate university and are inching closer to trial.

One lawsuit was filed in 2010 by a handful of students who paid as much as $35,000 each to attend Trump University, which they claim was a sham “full of empty promises” and not as advertised. A judge largely denied Trump’s motion to throw out the case last month, ruling that the students had brought up issues that should be heard by a jury.

A source with knowledge of the case said Trump was deposed last week.

The unlicensed online institution has come under fire in New York as well, with the state attorney general filing a similar suit that prompted the school to drop the “university” label from its name and proceed as the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative. In Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s $40 million lawsuit, he claims many students expected to meet Trump but instead got a picture with a life-size cardboard cutout instead.

Another lawsuit was also filed in San Diego in 2013, similar to the first, but with only one student named as a plaintiff.

The lingering lawsuits have followed him with national press on the campaign trail.

In a court hearing in San Diego earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel said he was anxious to move the 2010 case forward, pointing out this was the second-oldest case on his docket.

He also acknowledged the uniqueness of the case, saying it wasn’t often a presidential candidate was a party.

Trump’s presidential campaign was considered somewhat during the Dec. 4 hearing as the judge and lawyers grappled with setting future court dates to move toward trial. One of Trump’s lawyers, Daniel Petrocelli, asked the judge if postponing a trial until after July would be possible, to accommodate the intensified campaigning leading up to the Republican National Convention, set for that month.

The judge suggested aiming for an August trial date, giving lawyers enough time to sort out the myriad legal issues the complex case presents. No trial date has been officially set.

Attorneys for both sides did not respond to requests for interviews Thursday.

Trump levied his reputation as a well-known real estate magnate to open his for-profit Trump University in 2004, with advertisements that promised to teach students his insider secrets of success and instruction and mentoring by “handpicked” experts.

Prospective students were invited to a free seminar and then asked to join different levels of the program at increased costs.

Students from various states sued out of dissatisfaction with the program, describing it more like “a three-day infomercial” meant not to educate but to encourage students to pay for more seminars, according to the first lawsuit.

The students claim that the university promised them they would make the money back in their first real estate deal, and potentially tens of thousands per month more.

Trump has argued that the plaintiffs have not proven the program was worthless and that the advertising materials were not misleading. He further argued that he can’t be held personally liable because he did not run day-to-day operations at the university.

In a 2011 interview, one of Trump’s attorneys said there was no merit to the lawsuit and it was being brought by “greedy plaintiffs attorneys looking to extort Mr. Trump.”

Another said the students’ lack of success was their own fault.

Trump reacted to the first San Diego lawsuit by countersuing for defamation, but it has since been dismissed. A similar defamation complaint against the New York attorney general was also dismissed.

Four students, including Sonny Low of Chula Vista, remain in the 2010 lawsuit, and the judge has narrowed down the requirements for who else is eligible to join the class-action.

The school halted operations in 2010, although Trump said in a 2012 deposition: “Do we plan to start (Trump University) again after this lawsuit is won and after we bring the lawsuit against your firm? I would say probably yeah.”

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...oser-to-trial/

The students claim that the university promised them they would make the money back in their first real estate deal, and potentially tens of thousands per month more.

If that sales pitch was made to them, we don't know if it was, but if it was, have they done any real estate deals and if not, why not? If so, how much did they make?

FTC Complaints About ‘Trump University’ Reveal What a Sham It May Have Been

by Andrew Husband | 3:53 pm, August 25th, 2015
STEAMIER THAN A SAUNA
Recently released complaints from former students of Donald Trump‘s Trump University, founded in 2005, indicate that the organization was much more of a shady than previous reports suggested.

Last month, CNN reported that the 2016 presidential front-runner for the GOP would soon appear in court to face questions regarding two separate lawsuits against him and the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative — so renamed after the state of New York filed a complaint against Trump’s university.

The first was spearheaded by Art Cohen, a former student who claims he spent over $36,000 on the program. The second lawsuit was brought by the state of New York.

As the Washington Post and other outlets note, the supposedly educational programs have been plagued with complaints and lawsuits for several years now. However, considering Trump’s surging political ambitions at the moment, Trump University and all its setbacks have garnered renewed interest from outsiders.

Hence why Gizmodo writer Matt Novak issued a freedom of information request with the Federal Trade Commission — to see what some of the actual FTC complaints about Trump University said. Turns out, the presidential hopeful’s educational endeavors are an even bigger, steamier pile of crap that anything we’d previously imagined.

Highlights include a person who never received a free iPad door prize, despite being promised one at an event:

I attended a Trump Seminar in Scottsdale, AZ in August of 2010, with my husband. I was the lucky winner of the iPad door prize. They did not have the iPad in hand, so they gave me a name of a contact person at Trump Initiative. I called and never got a response from that particular person, though someone else did contact me. I have been in contact with this person, on and off (mostly off) since August.

I have the emails that we have corresponded back and forth. I have dates of phone calls, but no voice record of the conversations. I am also aware that I am NOT the only winner who has not received their iPad prize. I keep getting the response that they have not recieved their supply from their supplier. I have tried to resolve this issue on my own to no avail. I need assistance. As well as the other recipients. Unfortunately, I do not know who they are except for one. —- Additional Comments: To finally receive the iPad in question. At this point in time, since the new iPad 2 is out, I would like an upgrade for having had to wait so long.

A student who paid $20,000, in addition to basic program costs, for an individual mentor who was almost never present:

Consumer says she paid 1500 for a Real Estate class.

Consumer says they also paid 20,000 dollars for a coach plus 30 extra dollars. Consumer says he has not called or contacted her in over a month. Consumer says the coach did nothing. Consumer says she was to get other classes.

Consumer says they only offered them another mentor not their money back. Consumer says she found out the mentors was sub contractors and scammers. Consumer says she did not get a two year program so she could learn everything about the real estate business.

And finally, the pièce de résistance, the one who finally realized they’d paid $35,000 for books:

I feel the Donald Trump school scammed good and honest people in believing the school would help them in the Real Estate business. For my $35,000+ all I got was books that I could have gotten from the library that could guide me better then Trump’s class did. I just want my $35,000+ money back. I feel embarrass[ed] and very dumb for falling for Donald Trump so call real estate classes. —-

Additional Comments: If I can be refunded my money back, I would appreciate just that, thank you.

For a quick flashback, here’s an official introduction video used by Trump University back in the day:


[h/t Gizmodo]
[Image via screengrab]
— —
VIDEO @ link

http://www.mediaite.com/online/ftc-c...may-have-been/

Trump University: Why the N.Y. attorney general called it a scam

By Valerie Strauss August 8


Donald Trump participates in the first Republican presidential debate Thursday in Cleveland. (John Minchillo/AP)

You probably won’t be surprised to learn, if you didn’t already know, that Donald Trump started a university, or at least that’s what he called it. And it may not be surprising that Trump University caused a lot of controversy — so much, in fact, that he is embroiled in two lawsuits over it. One is a civil suit filed in 2013 by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, accusing Trump’s enterprise of defrauding students into paying fees that could reach more than $35,000;

the other is a class-action suit by a former student who alleges he didn’t get what he paid for.

What is this all about?

In 2005, the real estate magnate started an initiative that offered seminars in real estate, entrepreneurship and other related subjects and that charged from $1,500 to more than $35,000.

It was called Trump University, even though it didn’t actually give out degrees and wasn’t accredited.

Trump promised in one ad, “Just copy exactly what I’ve done and get rich.”

In 2010, he changed the name to the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative after the New York State Department of Education sent him a letter, according to the New York Daily News, accusing him of misleading the public by running an unauthorized school. The letter, signed by Deputy Commissioner for Higher Education Joseph Frey, said in part:

“Use of the word ‘university’ by your corporation is misleading and violates New York Education Law and the Rules of the Board of Regents.”

A year later, in 2011, the New York State Attorney General’s Office began investigating the program — which pretty much stopped operating at that point — and in 2013, Schneiderman filed a $40 million civil lawsuit against Trump and the institution, accusing both of charging more than 5,000 people big money to supposedly learn Trump’s successful real estate techniques but failing to deliver.

The suit says Trump U — often using high-pressure sales tactics and telling students that the next, more expensive seminar would reveal important secrets — earned about $40 million from students and seeks to the money recovered.

As you might expect, Trump hasn’t taken the lawsuits well and denies the accusations. In December 2013, he filed an ethics complaint in New York against Schneiderman, accusing the attorney general of illegally soliciting campaign contributions from Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, while probing Trump University, according to the New York Post.

In this March 2015 story, the Post said New York’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics is investigating the accusation.

Why would anyone spend money for a school that wasn’t accredited and offered no degree? This National Review story published last month described what happened to a New Jersey couple named Richard and Shelly Hewson, who paid $21,490 to learn how to make money by flipping houses. The story says:

“They ponied up the high price ‘because we had faith in Donald Trump,’ Richard wrote in a January 2015 affidavit. “We thought that if this was his program, we would be learning to do real estate deals from his people who knew his techniques.”What did the New Jersey couple get for shelling out more than $20,000 to a business bearing the famous Trump name? An instructor took them on a field trip to see dilapidated homes in rough Philadelphia neighborhoods, never bothering to explain how to reliably find properties to sell for a profit.

The National Review story did also find a few people who said they took courses from Trump University and got value out of it, but the larger story was the false promises that the New York suit alleges.

Last year, a judge found Trump personally liable for the university’s violation of New York education laws, and this past April, and a Manhattan Supreme Court judge ruled in April that the case would have to resolved at a trial.

Meanwhile, a class-action suit was filed in California by a former Trump University student named Art Cohen who said he spent more than $36,000 on courses that failed to deliver the top-notch education the university had promised. A judge in that case ordered both sides to complete “fact discovery” by Aug. 10, according to a Courthouse News story.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...led-it-a-scam/

The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The company's logo
Type	Privately held
Industry	Education
Predecessor	Trump University (name changed to The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative in June 2010)[1]
Founded	May 23, 2005 (as Trump University)[2]
Founder	Donald Trump
Headquarters	New York City, New York,United States
Parent	The Trump Organization
Website	trumpinitiative.com (registration required)

The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative (formerly Trump University) is an online education company owned and founded by Donald Trump. A part of The Trump Organization, the company offers courses in real estate, asset management, entrepreneurship, and wealth creation, charging fees ranging from US$1,500 to US$35,000.^[3]

It is not an accredited university or college and does not confer college credits or degrees.^[4]

In May 2011, the company was the subject of an inquiry by the New York Attorney General's office for "illegal business practices", which culminated in a lawsuit filed on August 24, 2013.^[3][5][6][7]

Contents

[hide]

• 1Foundation and subsequent name change
• 2Allegations of impropriety
• 3See also
• 4References
• 5Further reading
• 6External links

Foundation and subsequent name change[edit]

The company was founded on May 23, 2005.^[2] In June 2010, the institution officially changed its name from Trump University to The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative, after the New York State Department of Education took the view that it was "misleading and even illegal" for the institution to call itself a university.^[1]

Allegations of impropriety[edit]

On August 24, 2013, the State of New York filed a $40 million civil suit against the institution (which had largely ceased operations in May 2011), alleging illegal business practices and claiming numerous "false promises" made by The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative and its representatives.^[8] Donald Trump denied the allegations, claiming the school has a 98% approval rating and said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is "a political hack looking to get publicity."^[9]

The New York Times editorial board stated that "Mr. Schneiderman’s suit offers compelling evidence of a bait-and-switch scheme."^[10] Schneiderman accused Trump of misleading more than 5,000 people to pay up to $35,000 to learn his real estate investment techniques.^[11]

In October 2014 a New York judge found Trump personally liable for the institution's violation of state education laws.<sup>[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tr...eur_Initiative</sup>

Trump Academy Does Have An A Rating - Fox Does NOT Correct Their Lie

NY judge decides Trump University case going to trial

Published April 26, 2016 FoxNews.com

NOW PLAYINGJudge to decide if 'Trump University' case goes to trial
A New York judge decided Tuesday that a fraud case against Donald Trump over his former school for real estate investors will go to trial – raising the possibility that the Republican presidential primary front-runner could testify during campaign season.

New York County Supreme Court Judge Cynthia Kern made the decision at a hearing Tuesday, though it remains unclear whether the case will be weighed at a jury trial – which is what Trump’s team is seeking.

Trump attorney Jeffrey Goldman said it’s possible the trial could be held this fall, and Trump could testify.

In the case, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, has accused Trump and others of misleading thousands of students over the school.

Schneiderman alleges that Trump University was unlicensed since it began operating in 2005 and promised lessons with real estate experts hand-picked by Trump, only one of whom had ever met him. The attorney general said the school used "bait-and-switch" tactics, inducing students to enroll in increasingly expensive seminars.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing. He has said it was "a terrific school" with 98 percent approval ratings by its students.

Schneiderman had sued Trump and the school, which changed its name to the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative before it closed in 2010, for $40 million. The lawsuit seeks restitution and damages for more than 5,000 students nationwide, including 600 New Yorkers, who paid up to $35,000 each.

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A New York court earlier had refused to throw out the fraud lawsuit.

Trump filed complaints with the state's ethics commission in 2013, four months after the lawsuit was filed, alleging Schneiderman pursued it to wring out campaign contributions from Trump's daughter Ivanka. The commission dropped the complaint after a review. Schneiderman denied it, and his campaign returned the $500 donation Ivanka Trump had made in 2012.

Trump's fellow Republican candidates have attacked him over litigation against the school, including a class-action suit in California. Trump criticized the judge in that case.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016...l?intcmp=hpbt2

Donald ‘Never Settle’ Trump to Settle Trump University Fraud Lawsuit for $25 Million

The president-elect has agreed to shell out millions to student victims over claims his school engaged in fraud, but he won’t have to admit fault.

BRANDY ZADROZNY
11.18.16 9:39 AM ET

In the not-too-distant past, President-elect Donald Trump vowed to fight lawsuits against Trump University, the now defunct eponymous real-estate seminar program that former students alleged used aggressive marketing techniques to bilk them out of tens of thousands of dollars but failed to make good on promises to make them rich.

In February, Trump tweeted, “Trump University has a 98% approval rating. I could have settled but won't out of principle!”

Follow
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump

Trump University has a 98% approval rating. I could have settled but won't out of principle!
2:48 PM - 29 Feb 2016

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“I don’t settle lawsuits,” Trump later explained to an Arkansas crowd after his primary opponents began using Trump University as evidence that the real estate developer and reality television star was simply a con man. “Probably should have settled it, but I just can’t do that. Mentally I can’t do it. I’d rather spend a lot more money and fight it.”

He got the “spend a lot of money” part right, anyway.

Through his lawyers, Trump has negotiated a deal that will cost him $25 million to settle three separate lawsuits against Trump University, according to a statement released by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on Friday. The victims—some 6,000 people in New York, California, and Florida—will each receive restitution while up to $1 million will be paid to New York state as a penalty for violating education laws, according to Schneiderman’s statement. Requests for comment from Trump, his children, and his lawyer, were not returned.

"In 2013, my office sued Donald Trump for swindling thousands of innocent Americans out of ​millions of dollars through a scheme known at Trump University. Donald Trump fought us every step of the way, filing baseless charges and fruitless appeal​s​ and refusing to settle for even modest amounts of compensation for the victims of his phony university. Today, that all changes," Schneiderman's statement read in part.

The decision reverses claims made by Trump in dozens of interviews, stump speeches, and tweets that he would never settle.

“Do you know that almost everybody in the lawsuit has signed a letter saying how great the school was? That’s why I won’t settle because it's an easy case to win in court,” Trump said on Morning Joe in February.

“Obviously Trump getting elected as president changed his posture on settling,” a source familiar with the negotiations told The Daily Beast.


Though an exact figure cannot be known as the president-elect has refused to release his tax returns, Trump reportedly pocketed millions from the school that operated from 2005 to 2010. The school enrolled around 10,000 students in seminars that ranged between a $1,495 three-day seminar to a $35,000 program that promised (but often failed to deliver, according to former students) personal mentoring from “hand-picked” instructors, most of whom Trump had never even met, according to depositions.

Low v. Trump University, which alleges consumer fraud and elder abuse against Trump, is one of two California federal class action lawsuits against the school and was scheduled to begin on November 28, six years after the initial complaint was filed in 2010. Trump’s lawyers recently asked that the trial be delayed so that Trump could concentrate on the White House transition. . The students’ lawyers accused Trump’s counsel of seeking to stay the case indefinitely. U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel is set to rule on the delay today.

Curiel, the federal judge presiding over both California cases, was attacked during the campaign when then presidential nominee Trump complained the case against him was unfair, citing Curiel's Mexican heritage (he was born in Indiana) as prejudicial against Trump, who had promised to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. Curiel has urged both sides in recent weeks to come to a settlement.

"It would be wise for the plaintiffs, for the defendants, to look closely at trying to resolve this case given all else that’s involved,” he advised at a hearing last week.

At the same hearing, the lawyers confirmed settlement talks were in progress.

“[D]espite how aggressive we are on both sides, we get along well outside of court,” the students’ lawyers told the court. Trump lawyer, Daniel Petrocelli, agreed and promised the judge “we will both put our best efforts into it.”

A third case, brought by New York's attorney general in 2013, will also be settled as a result of the California talks taking place this afternoon.

“You lose leverage,” a source familiar with the negotiations explained to The Daily Beast, noting an overlap in the victims of the three cases would make it nearly impossible to go ahead with a trial in New York. The source called the multi million-dollar settlement “significant in a case where the defendant said he had a 98 percent approval rating.”

Until now, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has been relentless in his prosecution of Trump University, calling the business venture that reportedly brought in $40 million, “a fraud from beginning to end.” This year, Schneiderman also opened an investigation into the Trump foundation, a charity that had been violating state law by accepting donations without the proper registration.

Trump is a man known for making apologies only in rare instances, like when he said he was sorry if anyone was offended when he bragged of grabbing women by their genitals without consent. Unsurprisingly, he has never expressed regret for the the students who have come forward in the media and through their lawyers to tell of how they were pressured to max out their credit cards, or cash in their 401Ks to pay for seminars that they say imparted no actual value.

“It was a con,” 32-year-old ex-Marine Ryan Maddings told The Daily Beast in June. “Those stupid principles have led me to borrow $700,000 of other people’s money and lose it all. I’m still paying off some of that debt to this day.”

Maddings and other students says they were coerced into filling out positive evaluations. But for Trump, the glowing reviews, filled out while instructors looked on, prove Trump University was a success. So much so, in fact, that the president-elect has vowed to reopen Trump University after he moves into the White House.

“After the litigation is disposed of and the case won, I have instructed my execs to open Trump U(?), so much interest in it! I will be pres,” Trump Tweeted in June.

Follow
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump

After the litigation is disposed of and the case won, I have instructed my execs to open Trump U(?), so much interest in it! I will be pres.
10:02 AM - 2 Jun 2016

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And in May, before a California crowd, Mr. Trump repeated his intention.

“But if I don't win, and even if I do win, we want to open—my kids will open it up again, because it was a terrific school. It was great. It was good.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...0-million.html