Trump makes $25 million payment to settle Trump U fraud lawsuits
On the eve of his inauguration, Donald Trump on Wednesday made a $25 million payment to settle three fraud lawsuits that were filed against his Trump University scam.
According to the fraud suit settlement details, $21 million will go to roughly 7,000 former Trump University enrollees in a California class action lawsuit and the remaining $4 million will cover the lawsuit brought by New York’s attorney general Eric Schneiderman.
During the campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly proclaimed he would never settle the fraud lawsuit, saying, “I just don’t believe in settling, especially when you’re right,” he said. “Once you settle, everybody sues you.”
However, almost immediately after the campaign ended Trump settled the lawsuit for $25 million.
According to CNN:
Students said they were promised access to private financing options that never materialized, and concluded the program was effectively a bait-and-switch. Though initial seminars were free, attendees alleged that teachers only used them to get students to shell out for paid sessions.
Trump University also advertised that Trump himself picked the instructors, but former students claimed that wasn’t true.
Many ended up paying tens of thousands of dollars — and said they were a far cry from recouping the investment via real estate deals.
A “one year apprenticeship” was essentially a three-day seminar costing $1,495, the plaintiffs said in court documents. A “mentorship” cost at least $10,000. The top-tier Gold Elite program cost nearly $35,000.
