Trump University’s Ongoing Legal Battle

Louis Piatt still regrets the day he signed up for Trump University. The Monroe, Iowa retiree says he was duped into squandering more than $11,000 on real estate seminars and workshops. While Piatt lost money, Trump himself made millions. Trump University paid Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential frontrunner, $5 million out of some $40 million received by the university from 2005 to 2010, court records show. There are at least three active lawsuits against Trump and Trump University – one by the New York Attorney General’s Office and two related California class actions. Trump has said he has returned his $5 million in fees to the university, but the entity has yet to repay most of its former students. Piatt, who is not a named plaintiff in these three lawsuits, filed an official complaint with Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller. People in 11 states have filed complaints with their attorneys general. In his complaint to Iowa’s attorney general, Piatt included a letter he sent to Trump University seeking some of his money back. … Among the key pieces of evidence in the class actions is an infomercial by Trump in which he presents the university as his own. In the infomercial, the billionaire claims he personally hired “professors and adjunct professors that are absolutely terrific.” “And honestly, if you don’t learn from them, if you don’t learn from me, if you don’t learn from the people that we’re going to be putting forward, and these are all people handpicked by me,” Trump says, “then you’re just not going to make it in terms of world-class success.” Under oath, Trump told a different story. He testified in a 2012 deposition that, contrary to the Trump University sales materials and statements he made in the infomercial to the media, he neither selected the instructors nor oversaw the curriculum. Asked to name a single course taught by Trump University, he could not.