Jared Kushner, former twice-impeached President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, repeatedly violated state consumer protection laws by collecting debts without required licenses, charging tenants improper fees, and misrepresenting the condition of rental units, a Maryland judge ruled, according to The Baltimore Sun. Many people in Trump’s orbit find themselves in court numerous times for flouting the law. Interestingly, the Kushner family business had received a pair of nine-figure loans shortly after Trump’s son-in-law met with the lenders’ executives in the White House in 2018, so you’d think he would stop being a slumlord and clean up his business.
Back to the ruling.
“The apartment company of Jared Kushner violated Maryland’s consumer protection laws numerous times at Baltimore-area properties by collecting debts without the required licenses, charging tenants improper fees, and misrepresenting the condition of rental units, a judge has ruled,” the outlet reports.
‘In a 252-page decision issued Thursday, Administrative Law Judge Emily Daneker found that violations by Westminster Management and the company JK2 were “widespread and numerous.”’
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So, he’s a habitual grifting slumlord then.
Kushner and his brother Joshua each held 50% interest in JK2, according to the legal filing, and Westminster is the successor to that company, according to the Sun.
“Attorney General Brian Frosh, a Democrat, in 2019 sued Westminster and the 25 companies that owned apartment communities that it managed, alleging they took advantage of financially vulnerable consumers in Maryland,” the outlet reports.
Kushner somehow sees this as a victory.
“The Kushner Cos. characterized the decision as vindicating Westminster, which it owns,” the report states.
“Kushner respects the thoughtful depth of the Judge’s decision, which vindicates Westminster with respect to many of the Attorney General’s overreaching allegations,” the Kushner Cos’ general counsel, Christopher W. Smith, said in a statement to the outlet.
I’m not sure how this is a victory. According to the Associated Press, “the judge ruled tenants often were misled about apartment conditions and were not allowed to see their actual apartments until their move-in days.”
“Daneker found Westminster charged illegal fees thousands of times over the course of more than two years, such as wrongly charging more than $332,000 in agent fees,” the AP reports.
You can read the full report here.
Featured image via Political Tribune gallery
