Lawyers for the AG have suggested that the real reason the firm split with Trump last year was the AG's probe they want Cushman to hand over any communications concerning the split between the company and its board of directors.Ĭushman boasts 400 offices in 60 countries and last year claimed more than $9 billion in annual revenue. Cushman is also appealing James' subpoenaed demand for documents relevant to that tie-cutting. 13, 2021, saying it was cutting ties with the company due to Trump's involvement, days prior, in the attack on the Capitol.
The firm appraised multiple Trump Organization properties, including Trump Tower and Trump International Hotel and Tower in Manhattan, Trump Tower in Chicago, and the former president's golf clubs in Miami, Bedminster, NJ and Briarcliff Manor, NY.īut Cushman issued a press release on Jan. Trump was a major client for Cushman for years.
"My clients have incurred millions of dollars in attorney fees and expenses, in complying with their subpoenas," he said. "Over the last three years, my client has responded to twelve separate subpoenas," he said, in arguing before New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron for them to be quashed.
In arguments during a Manhattan court hearing on April 25, McEntire also said that Timothy Barnes, the Cushman employee who appraised Seven Springs, "actually aggressively pushed back" against the Trump Organization's demands.Ĭushman has more than cooperated, the lawyer also said during the hearing. Each would have to be told that their appraisals had been subpoenaed, as required by their engagement contracts. McEntire has said in court hearings that the subpoenas are "outrageous and overbroad," and that complying would violate the privacy of some 1,000 clients unrelated to the Trump Organization.Īnd the clients would know. She has demanded six years of additional appraisals each from the Cushman employee who appraised Seven Springs, and from the employee who appraised the LA-area golf club.Ĭushman attorney Sawnie A. James wants the three Cushman appraisers who handled 40 Wall Street to each turn over all of their other appraisals in the "Downtown Manhattan Office Market" between 20. Trump used the higher appraisal in securing a $160 million loan. In the case of the golf club and the Westchester estate, the Cushman appraisers "crafted a development timeline" for the properties and then "falsely attributed it to somebody else" as part of a tax-break scheme, Thompson said.Īs for 40 Wall Street, the AG has alleged that Cushman appraisals of Trump's interest in the 70-story skyscraper more than doubled in the three years between 20.
"We're worried about misstatements contained in appraisals, and whether they have been repeated more often than we've already identified," Thompson said in court last month, in defending their subpoena. The five targeted appraisers, "have made repeated misstatements in the documents we've seen so far," concerning those three properties, a lawyer for the AG's office, Austin Thompson, argued in a Manhattan court hearing last month. The Cushman records James wants - and which Cushman is fighting against turning over - center on five Cushman employees who did the appraisals for the Trump National Golf Club near Los Angeles, 40 Wall Street in Manhattan, and Seven Springs, a 212-acre estate in New York's Westchester County.
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