New York: A New York judge has ordered President Donald Trump’s company to hand over documents related to a suburban estate to investigators. Judge Arthur Angorone said the Trump Organization must answer all questions from the New York Attorney General’s Office in the case involving Ralph Mastromonaco, an engineer who worked at the Seven Springs estate in Westchester County, Manhattan.
Lawyers for the Trump Organization argued that the information shared with Mastromonaco was special because he was offering his expertise to the company’s land use advocates. But the judge dismissed this, saying that Trump’s lawyers had previously agreed that the same did not apply to Mastromonaco’s work on the Seven Springs project.
Mastromonaco said he had worked there nearly a decade ago and his tasks included submitting the project to the local Planning Board and designing a road. He said that he could not understand how his answer would make any difference in an investigation. He said, “I don’t know anything in this matter.”
The investigation by Attorney General Letitia James is trying to find out how the Trump Organization and its agents had assessed the value of Seven Springs. Trump purchased the property in 1995 on 212 acres north of Manhattan for a golf club. After this project failed, he gave the right to use 158 acres of land to a Conservation Land Justice in 2016 to get income tax exemption.
