SAN DIEGO: President-elect Donald Trump agreed Friday to pay $25 million to settle lawsuits against his now-defunct Trump University for real estate investors, averting a trial in a potentially embarrassing case that he had vowed during the campaign to keep fighting.
The settlement came 10 days before jury selection was scheduled to begin in one of the three cases. The complaints accused Trump University, which wasn’t an accredited school, of defrauding students who paid up to $35,000 a year to enroll in programs that promised to share Trump’s real estate secrets.
If the proposed settlement is approved by a federal judge, about 6,000 students covered in two-class action lawsuits in San Diego would share $21 million, and Trump will pay $4 million to settle a complaint filed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in 2013. Under the terms, Trump admitted no wrongdoing.
The settlement lifts what would probably be a major obstacle for Trump as he works to fill key executive branch positions and get acquainted with foreign leaders. The San Diego trial, on a case filed in 2010, was expected to last several weeks, guaranteeing daily news coverage of a controversy that dogged him during the campaign.
Trump’s political rivals seized on the lawsuits to try to portray him as dishonest and deceitful. Trump brought more attention to them by repeatedly assailing Indiana-born judge Gonzalo Curiel, who oversaw the two San Diego cases. Trump claimed the judge’s Mexican heritage exposed a bias.
The thousands of former students covered by the San Diego lawsuits will be eligible to receive at least half and possibly all their money back, as much as $35,000, said Jason Forge, an attorney for the plaintiffs.