Donald Trump’s top business representatives considered adding a presidential bounty to his Trump Tower penthouse, Mar-a-Lago resort and other assets during his years in the White House, a move that would have increased his net worth by nearly $145 million increased, says a director at the former president’s company tested on Friday.

Patrick Birney, assistant vice president of the Trump Organization, said during Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York that deputies ultimately scrapped the idea, but state attorneys argue that just going through the exercise underlines how Trump and his underlings plan to were finding ways to strengthen his butt. line. Trump is expected to return to court next week for the trial, when fixer foe Michael Cohen will take the witness stand.

Birney said Trump executives considered using 25% of the value of the Trump Tower apartment as a premium for presidential personal residences in 2017, his first year in office. They considered doing the same for Trump’s winter and summer homes at Mar-a-Lago and his Bedminster, N.J., golf club, Birney said.

A premium for a presidential summer residence at the same rate would have added $18.9 million to the Bedminster golf clubs’ price tag on Trump’s financial statements, Birney said, raising its stock market value to about $145 million. Trump executives tried to add 15% incentives for other properties that Trump didn’t spend much time on, he added. At one point they considered adding a 35% ex-president premium to certain assets.

Birney was testing at the end of the second week of a non-jury trial in New York’s Atty. General Letitia James has filed a fraud case and will return on Monday. He is the third Trump Organization executive to take the witness stand, following former Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg and Senior Vice President and Controller Jeffrey McConney. Both are suspects in the case and have now retired.

Last month, a judge ruled in a preliminary ruling that Trump and his company committed fraud for years by overstating the value of Trump’s assets and net worth on his financial statements. Those documents were given to banks, insurers and others to close deals and secure financing.

As punishment, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered that a court-appointed receiver take control of some Trump companies, casting doubt on the future of Trump Tower and other properties, but an appeals court has temporarily halted that from taking effect.

The lawsuit involves related charges of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying corporate records. James is demanding a fine of $250 million and wants Trump and other suspects banned from doing business in New York.

Birney, the only witness to testify Friday, indicated that Trump administrators began thinking about a possible presidential bounty as they sought ways to recoup the loss in value created by correcting the size of Trump’s 10,996 square meter penthouse in Manhattan, which had been incorrectly valued for years. on almost three times as many square meters.

That fix was made in Trump’s 2017 financial statement, after Forbes magazine published an article revealing the true size of the Trump Tower apartment. At the same time, the Trump Organization underwent what McConney previously called a financial clean-up, eliminating some payroll practices and financial arrangements following Trump’s election.

Was applying a presidential bounty to a range of assets something you would have done yourself? asked State Attorney Eric Haren.

No,” Birney replied.

Who directed you? the lawyer asked.

“I don’t remember exactly, but probably Allen Weisselberg,” Birney said.

Birney, who took a central role in preparing Trump’s financial statements starting in 2017, previously tested that Weisselberg, referring to Trump’s net worth, told him that Donald would like to see it rise. He tested that one of their discussions took place in a Trump Tower. bathroom.

Weisselberg was not asked about the presidential bounty when he tested Tuesday and Wednesday, nor in a statement he made in the case in May. But he and McConney did acknowledge that other types of premiums had been added to Trump’s property values.

In some years, Weisselberg tested, he instructed McConney to add a 30% premium to the values ​​reported for Trump’s golf courses in his financial statements, based on his brand and intrinsic value . McConney testified at the trial last week that years before Trump became president, he added $20 million to the value of Trump’s penthouse, partly because of his celebrity.

Birney said the presidential premium prices they calculated were disregarded in October 2017 and were never included in his financial statements.

State attorneys allege that Trump and his lieutenants considered and used various methods to inflate his net worth on his annual statements of financial condition, “but failed to disclose them to people who relied on the documents for an accurate picture of his wealth and assets.” .

For example, they calculated the values ​​of some Trump properties based on the asking prices of other comparable properties, and not on the sales prices used in professional appraisals. For Mar-a-Lago, they calculated a rudimentary price per acre based on the sales prices of comparable properties in Palm Beach, Florida, and then added additional value to account for a ballroom and other amenities.

Trump, who has reported a net worth of more than $6 billion in recent years, estimates that his brand alone may be worth $10 billion. In his April deposition for the case, he called it my most valuable asset and attributed his political success to the ubiquity of his name and personality.

But Trump claimed he never accounted for his brand in his financial statements. In April he tested: if I wanted to make a statement that was high, I would have set up the brand.

Trump’s own financial statements are not so clear. Year after year, they have included a confusing clause suggesting that Trump’s fame was both a factor and not a factor in assessing his assets.

Trump’s name conveys a high degree of quality and profitability, which significantly increases the value of his properties, the clause said. A few sentences later it says: The goodwill associated with the Trump name has a significant financial value that was not reflected in the preparation of this financial statement.