Jefferson Siegel/New York Daily News Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is suing Donald Trump for $40 million, saying he and his deputies made false promises to people who paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition.
Lawyers for Donald Trump and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman clashed Tuesday on whether the bombastic billionaire is entitled to a jury trial on the state's charge that Trump and his defunct "university" were one big fraud.
Schneiderman is suing Trump for $40 million, saying he and his deputies lied to people to get them to pay tens of thousands of dollars in tuition by promising that they would be taught by faculty who were handpicked by the developer and familiar with his secrets to success.
Jane Azia, Schneiderman's chief of consumer frauds, told Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Cynthia Kern that "they have no right to a jury trial."
SCHNEIDERMAN SAYS CASE AGAINST TRUMP UNIVERSITY NOT POLITICS
However, Trump's lawyer, Jeffrey Goldman, said that with $40 million at stake, his client is entitled to a jury trial — and claimed Schneiderman doesn't want one because he's afraid he will lose the case.
"We think we'll get a fair trial (with a jury)," Goldman said.
"Why would the attorney general who represents constituents of the state of New York fear the constituents of the state of New York determining if he's right? They don't want to go to trial."
Any trial will be months off because the parties agreed Tuesday to postpone their next court date until the higher courts decide if Trump's unsuccessful battle to kill the case should go to the state's highest court.
In addition, Schneiderman's office has to decide if it's going to press the case on the grounds that Trump violated common law fraud rules as well as state law.
Kern said that if the attorney general insists on pressing both claims, state lawyers will have to take more detailed depositions from alleged victims to prove that they relied on Trump's allegedly false promises to pay the steep tuition.
Trump’s lawyer said that if Schneiderman drops the common law fraud claim, the case will move faster and be before a jury as early as the fall.
Kern refused to take sides in question of whether Trump is entitled to a jury. She invited the lawyers to submit papers arguing the point.
Schneiderman said in a statement he was confident the judge intends to "move as expeditiously as possible to trial, as thousands of Mr. Trump's alleged victims have been waiting years for relief from his fraud."
"We believe that Mr. Trump and (Michael) Sexton will be essential witnesses at trial. As we will prove in court, Donald Trump and his sham for profit college defrauded thousands of students out of millions of dollars."