re: Someone explain the Trump fraud case to me?

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The judge used appraised value and disregarded finding a market value. These are his matters of record.

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I may not understand your point. The judge would not determine a market value. He would allow evidence of what the party believed the market value to be. A jury would not be charged to determine the market value either. It would just be charged to determine if the defendants reasonably believed that value. It’s not a question of the value, it’s whether someone reasonably believed the value when they represented it

The defendants didn’t offer any evidence on the basis of belief, just the statement that a real estate agent could find a buyer (at least according to the judges decision). I’d hope most judges would allow that testimony, but the judge disallowed consideration based on NY law, and thus determined no reasonable person could conclude that a statement of value that is 2300% above appraised value was not knowingly false with an intent to deceive

That will get appealed, but it’s likely without impact. The trial is jury waived, so if the testimony would be allowed, the judge would still make the determination based on what he reasonably believe ( as opposed to any reasonable person)

IMHO, the other appeal is more impacful. The likely reason the defense didn’t provide any contemporaneous evidence of value is because they didn’t have it. There record retention policy likely doesn’t go back that far. If the appeals court ruled that other evidence is too aged to be used, there could be less evidence of value by the AG, and thus, they couldn’t make their prima facile case