New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) in a new filing asked a state judge to sanction former President Trump, his two adult sons and their legal team for $20,000, saying they continue to bring up arguments already rejected in court.
James — who is suing the former president, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, the Trump Organization and others for $250 million over allegations that they falsely inflated their assets — argued Tuesday that arguments raised by Trump’s legal team have been struck down twice by the court. An appeals court also separately rejected the claims.
When the Trump legal team raised the arguments the second time, the judge noted that they “were borderline frivolous even the first time defendants made them” and said that a “sophisticated defense counsel should have known better,” according to Tuesday’s filing.
$20k isn’t shit when he’s raising MILLIONS off his idiotic mugshot. We really need to scale these court-ordered fines for accumulated wealth to stop these rich assholes from ignoring the law.
Fine his ass 5% of his inflated net worth for the first infraction, and keep incrementing from there until he complies, or put a lien on any of his companies making income in the state of NY or something.
Some of those are donations, some is from selling trump stuff with his mugshot on it…
But the Fulton County Sheriff has a copyright on the mugshot, and can sue him for any profits off that stuff. Not sure if using the picture can get them the donations, but there’s no reason not to try.
Is that the case for Georgia state agencies? At the federal level, works created by a federal employee as part of their job are not subject to copyright; they’re automatically in the public domain. However that rule doesn’t apply to states and different states have different rules. This Wikipedia article on the subject doesn’t include Georgia.
Yeah, I’d be surprised if a public photo was subject to copyright. Upside is that anyone ELSE can sell them.
Some US states do hold copyright over state workers’ work. This isn’t illegal under federal law (though maybe it should be).
So the old lady at the DMV owns all our ID pics?
No, as with all other work done as part of employment, the employer (in their case, the state) owns the copyright.
I agree, but if it makes you feel better part of the punishment is the reputational hit to the law firm. It’s one thing that they defending Trump in the first place, you might be able to waive that away with a “everyone is entitled to a competent defense” argument. But being fined for raising frivolous arguments multiple times in the same case just shows poor judgment and shit attorney work. You own a start up and are expanding and looking for legal counsel, you want to hire the firm that did such shit legal work that they and their client was fined because of it? Nah, fuck that.