Engoron and Trump will appear in court on Monday. Photo: AP Photo/Seth Wenig
The man facing a ruling in Donald Trump's property empire is no stranger to legal battles with the former president.
Since Arthur Engoron began presiding over cases, related to Trump in 2020, he was forced to testify, he was held in contempt of court and fined more than $100,000.
The case spawned a bitter feud between the two men. Mr. Trump called him «deranged,» «deranged» and a «political hack,» and Mr. Engoron used official rulings to ridicule the former president using pop culture references.
In a footnote to his latest ruling that Mr. Trump had inflated his net worth, Mr. Engoron cited a quote from the Marx Brothers movie “Duck Soup”: “Well, who are you going to believe: me or your own eyes?” /p>
The decision found that Mr. Trump committed fraud for years by exaggerating his wealth and the value of assets in the financial statements he used to obtain loans and make deals.
Mr. Engoron said he would dissolve some of the president's first companies, a decision that could see him lose control of his iconic New York properties such as Trump Tower.
The pair will face each other in court on Monday in a trial that will decide the future of the Trump Organization and whether Trump will be required to pay $250 million (£205 million) in damages sought by Letitia James, York's new attorney general.< /p> 
The Trump case may be the last major case Engoron handles before retiring. Photo: AP Photo/Mike Mulholland, File
Mr. Engoron spent his early years in Queens, about 6 miles east of his boyhood home former president.
He first made headlines in 1964 when he and three friends won the top prize in a contest held by the New York Mets baseball team, which invited fans to parade across the field with banners.< /p>
Mr. Engoron, then 15, scribbled an adaptation of a Republican quote about communism: “Extremism in defense of the Mets is not a vice.” .
Later, while studying at Columbia University, the future judge drove a taxi, a fact he discovered while ruling against then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to expand yellow taxi service outside New York.
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In another ruling, he said he once participated in “huge, sometimes noisy protests against the Vietnam War.” He is a self-described free speech advocate and has been a member of the American Civil Liberties Union since 1994.
Along with his career as a clerk and judge, he taught piano and drums and played keyboards. he described them as a «moderately successful» bar group.
Mr. Engoron became a New York State judge in 2003, handling small claims and other small claims, and was later appointed acting judge of the First Court state authorities, a position he made permanent in 2015.
His term runs until 2029, although the Trump case may be the last major case he oversees before retiring under New York law at age 76.
Lawsuits involving Donald Trump and when they started
After Engoron gained control of the fraud lawsuit last October, Trump's lawyers accused Ms. James's office of trying to «try the store» for a more critical ruling.
In subpoena disputes related to the case, Mr. Engoron has already forced Mr. Trump to pay a $110,000 fine and testify.
He has also issued orders enjoining the Trump Organization and its Appraiser Cushman & Wakefield to turn over evidence and demanded that Trump's son, Eric Trump, testify at a deposition.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Engoron share a shared love for the city of New York, where both built career spanning decades.
The former president typically divides his time between Florida and New York and avoids the Washington swamp whenever possible.
But a fraud trial in New York could force him to give up Trump Tower — its glass tower. and the steel flagship on New York's Fifth Avenue, nearly four miles from Mr. Engoron's lower Manhattan courthouse.
Mr. Engoron often punctuates his decisions with song lyrics, movie quotes and periodic lessons in New York history.
He quoted Bob Dylan and Shakespeare, as well as films like City Slickers, and signed his resolutions with the initials AE drawn in a circle.
In 2017, Engoron approached Frank Sinatra. hit «Love and Marriage,» which the song notes «goes together like a horse and carriage,» in response to the ruling restricting horse-drawn carriage protests in Central Park.
In another ruling, he said on the review process in New York The new housing «looks as if Rube Goldberg, Franz Kafka and the Marquis de Sade cooked it up over a martini.»
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