Judge in Trump's NY fraud case imposes sanctions on his lawyers for repeating frivolous arguments

Last January I reported (here) that New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron sent a note to lawyers for the Trump family and the Trump Organization stating that "[u]pon thoroughly reviewing the papers in support of some defendants’ pending motions to dismiss, this Court is considering imposing sanctions for frivolous litigation . . ., for setting forth the same legal arguments that this Court previously rejected . . ."  

Since then, the judge found Trump liable and started the trial to determine the appropriate sentencing, but in the process, the judge finally decided that pending matter of the sanctions.  As reported in Above the Law, 

New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron issued a blistering broadside, sanctioning defense counsel and granting the New York Attorney General partial summary judgment in the civil fraud case against Trump and his associates.

. . . . 

“Defendants’ conduct in reiterating these frivolous arguments is egregious. We are way beyond the point of ‘sophisticated counsel should have known better’; we are at the point of intentional and blatant disregard of controlling authority and law of the case,” Justice Engoron wrote furiously. “This Court emphatically rejected these arguments, as did the First Department. Defendants’ repetition of them here is indefensible.”

. . . . 

“Unfortunately, sanctions are the only way to impress upon defendants’ attorneys the consequences of engaging in repetitive, frivolous motions practice after this Court, affirmed by the Appellate Division, expressly warned them against doing so,” Justice Engoron wrote, adding that “It is of no consequence whether the arguments were made at the direction of the clients or sua sponte by the attorneys; counsel are ethically obligated to withdraw any baseless and false claims, if not upon their own review of the record, certainly by the time the Supreme Court advised them of this fact.” . . .