Lawsuit: Trump Family Scammed Vulnerable Investors

They're accused of peddling dodgy investment schemes
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 30, 2018 12:01 AM CDT
Lawsuit: Trump Family Scammed Vulnerable Investors
In this June 19, 2013 photo, Donald Trump arrives with his children Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka to announce the building of Trump International Hotel and Tower in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia.   (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press via AP)

President Trump, his three eldest children, and the Trump Organization defrauded thousands of consumers by persuading them to invest in phony get-rich-quick schemes, according to a new lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed in federal court Monday, accuses Trump and children Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka of failing to disclose that they were accepting "large, secret payments" from the entities they were promoting as legitimate business opportunities, the New York Times reports. The four plaintiffs say they invested in telecommunications firm ACN after watching Trump's promotional videos. They say Trump made false claims about the company's chances of success while quietly accepting millions of dollars from it.

"This case is about four working-class Americans, and thousands more just like them, who were deliberately defrauded by Donald J. Trump, his family, and the corporation that bears their name," states the lawsuit. The suit accuses the Trumps of leveraging the family brand to make a "series of false and misleading statements and omissions to ensnare vulnerable consumers." The plaintiffs include a hospice caregiver named as "Jane Doe," who says she paid $499 to register with ACN and thousands more to attend company events, but only earned $38 in two years, Politico reports. The lawsuit is being funded by the Tesseract Research Center, whose chairman is Democratic donor Morris Pearl. (Trump paid $25 million to settle Trump University lawsuits.)

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