Trump sued over ‘phoney’ courses

New York’s attorney general has sued Donald Trump for $40m (€30m), saying the real estate mogul helped run a phoney “Trump University” that promised to make students rich but instead steered them into expensive and mostly useless seminars, and even failed to deliver promised apprenticeships.

Trump shot back that the Democrat’s lawsuit is false and politically motivated.

Attorney general Eric Schneiderman says many of the 5,000 students who paid up to $35,000 thought they would at least meet Trump but instead all they got was their picture taken in front of a life-size picture of The Apprentice star.

“Trump University engaged in deception at every stage of consumers’ advancement through costly programmes and caused real financial harm,” Schneiderman said. “Trump University, with Donald Trump’s knowledge and participation, relied on Trump’s name recognition and celebrity status to take advantage of consumers who believed in the Trump brand.”

Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen said the lawsuit was filled with falsehoods and that Trump and his university never defrauded anybody.

He said Trump University provided nearly 11,000 testimonials to Schneiderman from students praising the programme and that 98% of students in a survey termed it “excellent”.