Donald Trump Jr. testified Monday in an ongoing fraud trial that the family's New York City golf course had been saved from a project that was an "old-school New York mob job," according to a new report.
Donald Jr. took to the stand to defend the Trump Organization's business practices in the $250 million civil lawsuit brought by Attorney General Letitia James, ABC News reports.
Trump Jr. said the Trump Links Ferry Point golf course in The Bronx became an "absolutely incredible" venue months after his father took the reins.
"People were supposedly trying to build a golf course for years," Trump Jr. reportedly said. "It was raw dirt. It had been that way for a long time."
Before Trump teed up to the project, the site had been an "old-school New York mob job" where people were paid to push dirt with shovels, according to the son who also testified to his father's ability to see "the sexiness in a real estate project."
Trump's name was stricken from the Bronx golf course earlier this year after the city's unsuccessful bid to cancel his 20-year lease at the site on the grounds that Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg had pleaded guilty to tax fraud.
The course, since sold, was the subject of a New York City scandal when news broke it would host a Saudi Arabia-backed tournament.
Said Queens Council Member Shekar Krishnan at the time, “Public parkland should not be in the hands of Donald Trump or his criminal enterprise."
