A Lot of People Have Sued Donald Trump: An Incomplete List

By teleSUR

15 March 16

onald Trump has been called a con artist many times, but not only on the campaign trail. The real estate tycoon — who, though a billionaire, has filed multiple times for bankruptcy — has been hit with hundreds of lawsuits, public records show, many of them for fraud and, in some cases, for being an all-around bad person.

The Trump Organization, the centerpiece of the Republican front-runner's bragging rights, has a long history of social and fiscal irresponsibility. As early as 1983, Trump was accused of conspiring to employ “non-union Polish workers ‘off-the-books’ and deprive them of pension and welfare contributions owed to the Funds on their behalf," according to court records. The Polish workers, many of them undocumented immigrants, were not even given the US$4 to $5 an hour they were promised.

Trump settled the case for an undisclosed amount.

"Thanks to courageous rank-and-file dissidents like Harry (Diduck, the plaintiff), justice is finally catching up to Trump Tower," said James McNamara of the Association for Union Democracy in 1999, when the case came to a close. McNamara was speaking much too soon.

Two decades and dozens of settlements later, Trump remains knee-deep in litigation.

Take Jacqueline Goldberg, age 87: She is suing the Republican front-runner because "somebody had to stand up to him," or so she said after filing a US$500,000 lawsuit against him for fraud. She said Trump broke a revenue-sharing deal at his Chicago tower, going against the original contract and pocketing her US$516,000 deposit.

"I think I have exposed him for what he is," Goldberg told Law360.

Fraud, judging by all the cases filed against him, is Trump’s signature move.

One of the billionaire’s longest-running fights was in Baja California, where duped investors lined up to sue the former reality TV star.

In an advertisement, Trump had declared that, "When I build, I have investors that follow me all over ... They invest in what I build. And that's why I'm so proud of Trump Ocean Resort (Baja Mexico)."

He later said the luxury resort wasn’t his.

The Trump name, it turned out, was licensed, attracting over US$32 million in deposits. Then the venture failed following the 2008 financial collapse. Trump lost the case against the nearly 200 buyers, but he demanded he win settlement money from the developer, too — on top of the commission he won for every sale. A similar story played out with projects in Panama and Puerto Rico.

This business model — of letting others put in money for condos with his name on them — is one of Trump’s most profitable, raking in US$32 million to US$55 million, according to Bloomberg’s count.

Still, despite taking pride in the power and profitability of his name, Trump has repeatedly had to inflate his brand to attract any customers.

In one case, he exaggerated sales data for a SoHo hotel-condo, he pretended to sell property while actually selling securities in a Las Vegas tower. Most famously, he also falsely claimed to be selling “real estate secrets” at Trump University, a fake university.

Trump even plays with contracts once a deal is sealed, seizing big cash from unsuspecting customers: He kept an insurance policy secret at a Fort Lauderdale condo until it expired, depriving buyers of a US$5 million plan, and refused to refund deposits that members paid before he bought a Ritz-Carlton golf course in Jupiter, Florida.

Most real estate developers facing so many charges of fraud might settle with being called a crook or a cheat; Trump, characteristically, has opted to turn the cases into showbiz, calling lawyers “buffoons,” dismissing claims as “buyers’ remorse” and pleading with courts to be delicate with his name.

Not all his opponents have been human. He kept his eyes on land reserved for endangered plant and snake species to build his (now failed) 800-acre film set, Trump Studio City, a hubristic effort to take on Hollywood. He's fought alternative energy, too, suing to block a wind farm near one of his golf courses — a “dangerous experiment,” in his words, led by “foolish, small-minded and parochial” Scottish people.

Trump has also defended the racism, ableism and ageism of his top personnel, sued for a variety of reasons, including: firing a Black woman, citing a poor performance evaluation that never happened; refusing to allow a cancer patient to carry a water bottle for his dry mouth; and allegedly hurling racist abuse at another Black employee.

When accused, personally, of racism — of telling supervisors to label Black applicants “C” for “colored” and deny them leases at his properties — Trump's lawyer smeared the accused, calling the plaintiff a “hot-tempered white female” and the investigation she spawned “Gestapo-like.”

Trump’s bombast is sometimes his only means of defense, and yet he refuses to give up. Unable to overrun Hollywood and unable to outrun his duped clients, Trump is trying his shot at running the country. That too has prompted lawsuits, albeit of the frivolous variety.

One Pennsylvania man who identifies as “an American Indian and American witch, warlock, and wiccan who practices witchcraft,” has filed suit against Trump over his anti-Muslim comments, which the plaintiff believes have been made while under the control of the CIA’s “Telepathic Behavior Modification Program.”

Another man from Illinois said the comments “committed treason on the United States and others state’s constitution(s) by discriminating against human beings and by violating the ten commandments of the Holy Scriptures.” As relief, he requested that Trump immediately suspend his campaign, be charged with conspiracy, have his assets seized, be forced to apologize and be investigated for “all cruel and unusual punishment towards America citizen(s).”

Other plaintiffs have claimed they were physically hurt by Trump during his campaign, although one such lawsuit lumps him in with the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Hugh Hefner “and All Pimps,” major banks, the British royal family, “Extremist Baptist Christians” and Oprah.

Perhaps the wannabe president would be flattered to be listed alongside actual billionaires, respected stars and world leaders, though he has not commented on the litigation, too busy launching his own dubious lawsuits.

Univision, NBC, Macy’s, two celebrity chefs and the Professional Golfers’ Association have all been hit by Trump lawsuits in recent months after they terminated contracts with him over his racist comments about Mexican immigrants.If lawsuits can tell us anything about a person, then Trump’s show that does not care about honesty, or fairness, or even money — in the end, what he cares about is his name and reputation