http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11141692/trump-university-fraud-lawsuitBad news for Donald Trump: a court strengthened a fraud lawsuit against Trump University
Before the presidential campaign is over, Donald Trump could end up having to testify in three separate cases about his allegedly fraudulent university.
A New York appeals court ruled Monday that a $40 million lawsuit from the state's attorney general could proceed, and that it could include evidence from up to six years ago about Trump University's deceptive practices.
Trump University wasn't a university but a multilevel marketing scam
Trump University — which was never licensed to call itself a "university" — shut down in 2010. But the legal fallout, including Schneiderman's suit, has continued.
The university, Schneiderman has charged, was a "bait and switch," a classic multilevel marketing scheme: People are told that the real benefits they want are only available if they keep paying, essentially urging them to throw good money after bad.
People were lured into a free workshop with marketing materials that promised they'd learn Trump's real estate secrets from his "handpicked" instructors and maybe even from Trump himself. Instead, they were urged to sign up for a three-day seminar that cost nearly $1,500. And at that seminar, they were pushed to sign up for an elite mentorship program that could cost as much as $35,000 per year.
Trump didn't handpick the mentors. He didn't write the curriculum. He didn't even show up at the seminars. Instead, students got to take a photo with a cardboard cutout of him.
Even the most expensive mentorship didn't deliver, Schneiderman's lawsuit charges. Some mentors simply vanished. Others had no background in real estate at all.
When Trump's candidacy looked like a publicity stunt, Trump University mostly flew under the radar.
Two class-action lawsuits from Trump University students are also working their way through the legal system in San Diego district court. Trump University's treatment of the elderly is getting special scrutiny: Some of the plaintiffs are over 60 and sank tens of thousands of dollars into Trump University's workshops and mentorships.
The final pretrial conferences for the cases are in March and June, and at least one could go to trial as soon as August.
US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, has said he's eager to move the cases forward and has acknowledged that it's unusual to have a presidential candidate in his courtroom, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. And it's likely that Trump himself will have to testify: He's on the witness list.
As Time magazine's Steve Brill pointed out, Trump University's victims often look a lot like Trump's voters: lower middle class, white, often elderly, and worried about their economic situation.