Defense witness says Trump paid him nearly $900K for fraud trial testimony

Donald Trump paid an expert witness for his defense substantially more than had been previously indicated.

New York University accounting professor Eli Bartov testified Thursday that he did not believe the former president had committed fraud when filing financial disclosures with applications for bank loans. On cross-examination Friday, Bartov testified that he was paid $1,350 an hour for his testimony, and he worked a total of 650 hours on the case, reported The Messenger.

Bartov had estimated in July that he spent just 250 hours preparing his report and 150 hours on a rebuttal report, which would have amounted to about $520,000.

Trump, who attended Thursday's direct examination, highlighted Bartov's claim that he saw "no evidence of accounting fraud" on the financial statements the ex-president used to obtain bank loans.

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Bartov told the court that he did not find it unusual that Trump's Fifth Avenue apartment had been valued at more than three times the market value because the square footage was tripled, but he was not permitted to give his opinion on Trump's intent when he inflated those property values.

Experts are commonly paid for their trial testimony and routinely questioned about those payments to raise concerns about their credibility.