He drove a cab, played in a band, and protested against the Vietnam War. As a New York City judge, Arthur Engoren settled hundreds of disputes, resolving everything from zoning and free speech issues to a custody battle over a dog named “Stevie.”
Now, in the twilight of a distinguished two-decade career, the erudite, Ivy League-educated judge is presiding over his biggest case yet: deciding the future of former President Donald Trump’s real estate empire.
Last week, Ngolon ruled that Trump committed fraud by overstating his wealth and the value of his assets for years on financial statements used to obtain loans and conduct transactions. As punishment, the judge said he would dissolve some of Trump’s companies — a decision that could result in him losing control of major New York properties like Trump Tower.
Ngolon will preside over a nonjury trial in Manhattan starting Monday to resolve remaining claims in a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James against Trump, his companies and executives. He will also decide on monetary damages. James’ office is seeking $250 million.
Trump, named as a potential witness who could eventually face Ngolon in court, called the judge’s fraud ruling a “corporate death sentence.” He called Ngolon a “political hack” and said he would appeal.
“I have a deranged, Trump-hating judge who is trying this fake case in New York State Court at unprecedented speed,” the 2024 Republican frontrunner wrote on his Truth social platform.
Ngolon, through a court spokesman, declined to comment on Trump’s barb. He is prohibited from commenting to the news media about the case.
Trump has generally avoided going to court in many cases involving his companies. He was absent from the criminal trial in which the Trump Organization and one of its executives were convicted of tax evasion, and he was absent from the civil trial in which he was convicted of sexually assaulting the author E. Jean Carroll. But when asked on Friday if he planned to attend the New York trial, Trump said: “I probably will. I can.”
Ngolon, a Democrat, repeatedly ruled against Trump in the three years he presided over James’ lawsuit. He forced Trump to testify, held him in contempt of court and fined him $110,000.
Now Ngolon is poised to permanently destroy the collection of skyscrapers, golf courses and other properties that made Trump famous and put him in the White House.
At a hearing in the case last Wednesday, the day after the ruling, Ngolon offered “a little New York humor” to ease tensions. He repeated a well-known story about a judge who finally agreed with everyone who spoke in the courtroom.
Ngolon is a fan of puns and pop culture references, and he often turns to humor even in the most serious of hearings and decisions.
“We certainly could have used it today,” Trump attorney Christopher Case said.
Ngolon, 74, several years younger than Trump, spent his early years in Queens, about 3.8 miles (6 kilometers) east of the former president’s childhood home.
Ngolon’s family later moved to East Williston, Long Island, where he competed in track and wrote for the student newspaper of the Whitley School, a public high school in Old Westbury, New York, where he Graduated in 1967.
A proud alumnus, Ngolon is the founder and director of the school’s alumni association and writes an online newsletter that contains news about graduates who nicknamed him “Whit “Mayor Lee”. Last year, he even posted a link to an article about his involvement in the Trump case.
He ended one newsletter with a playful call-to-action: “Please send me your autobiography before anyone else sends me your obituary.”
N’Golon first made headlines in 1964 when he and three friends won big prizes in a “Banner Day” contest in which the two-year-old New York Mets invited fans to hold banners with creative messages. Parade on the field about the team.
An early sign of N’Golon’s irreverence, the message was a take-off on a popular political quote of the era: “Extremism in defense of the metropolis is not a vice.” N’Golon was only 15 at the time.
Ngolon drove a taxi in the 1960s while attending Columbia University — a decade before he ruled against then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s expansion of yellow-cab service to New York This fact was revealed when planning outside the city. A state appeals court later overturned that decision.
Ngolon’s ruling is filled with biographical information, part full disclosure, part nostalgia. In a decision, he revealed that he participated in “large and sometimes raucous Vietnam War protests.” He also calls himself a free speech absolutist and says he has been a member of the American Civil Liberties Union since 1994.
Engoron received his law degree from New York University in 1979. He worked as a litigator and for 11 years served as a law clerk to a judge in the same court where he now serves. Ngolon also teaches piano and drums and plays keyboards in what he calls a “fairly successful” bar band. He was married three times and had four children, according to his Wheatley alumni page biography.
Engoron joined the New York City Civil Court in 2003 as a judge, which handles small claims and other less risky litigation. In 2013, he was appointed acting judge of the state’s trial court and ran unopposed for the permanent bench in 2015. His term ends in 2029, but New York requires judges of his rank to retire when they turn 76.
Former legal clerk Michelle Bernstein Ravenscroft said she remembers Ngolon as “friendly and approachable, and he was very involved in making sure his clerks had a good learning experience with him. “
Ngolon often peppers his rulings with lyrics, movie quotes and the occasional New York City history lesson. He cited quotes from Bob Dylan and Shakespeare, as well as movies like “City Slick” and the Marx Brothers classic “Duck Soup.” He signed them with some kind of symbol, his initials AE, drawn in a circle.
In 2017, Ngolon turned to Frank Sinatra’s hit “Love and Marriage,” writing that the song “comes together like a horse and buggy.” , to limit protests on the Central Park Carriage. He titled a section “The Balance of Horses, Er, Stocks.”
In his 2015 custody ruling for Stevie, a mixed-race female with Basenji ancestry, Ngolon engaged in a philosophical discussion of animal rights (or lack thereof) while overturning his previous attempts to ruling. The best interests of your pet.
“Granting rights to animals is the ultimate slippery slope,” he said, reasoning, “If dogs are thought to have rights, why not cats, raccoons, squirrels, fish, ants, cockroaches? You can be imprisoned for swatting flies. ? Where will everything end?
In a separate ruling, Ngolon said New York’s new housing review process “looks like it was cooked up by Rube Goldberg, Franz Kafka and the Marquis de Sade over martinis.”
Ngolon has been involved in Trump-related cases since 2020, when he was assigned to intervene in a dispute between Trump lawyers and James’ office over evidence requests and the direction of the investigation.
Trump’s lawyers wanted James’ lawsuit to be moved to a judge in the court’s business division, which was created to handle complex corporate litigation, but the administrative law judge assigned the case to Ngolon, citing his experience in the matter.
Back in court last Wednesday, as Trump’s lawyers and James’ office reached a rare consensus on procedural matters, N’Golon had one final quip.
“I knew this case was going to be a love fest,” he said.
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