Ex-Trump Business Associate Found Liable for Money Laundering in Retrial

Jurors handed up an award of $52 million against Felix Sater. That award is without interest factored in—a potentially significant addition since the acts took place more than a decade ago. 

Felix Sater, a former real estate business associate of President Donald Trump, was found liable Friday for helping a Kazakh banking family launder tens of millions of dollars of cash allegedly stolen from the City of Almaty, Kazakhstan and BTA Bank.

Sater was found liable for conversion, unjust enrichment following a two-week retrial of a civil case that was first tried last year.

On retrial, jurors handed up an award of $52 million. That award is without interest factored in—a potentially significant addition since the acts took place more than a decade ago.

At the first trial, Sater was found liable and a $32 million damages award was imposed.

A representative for Sater didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Sater is a real estate developer who once looked to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

In 2019, Sater was sued by the City of Almaty, Kazakhstan, and BTA Bank over a $4 billion embezzlement scheme that was allegedly orchestrated by Almaty’s former mayor, Viktor Khrapunov, and BTA’s former chairman, Mukhtar Ablyazov.

The city and bank, represented by Boies Schiller Flexner, alleged that Sater worked with Ilyas Khrapunov—Viktor’s son and Mukhtar’s son-in-law—to launder money through U.S. real estate projects, including the Tri-County Mall in Ohio and the Trump SoHo Hotel in New York.

After a trial in 2024, federal jurors held Sater liable for conversion, unjust enrichment and receipt of monetary funds. But U.S. District Judge John Koeltl ordered a new trial on the first two claims, based on a faulty jury instruction.

During the second trial, Sater’s defense argued that the case was brought outside of the three-year statute of limitations and that the plaintiffs—aware of who they were working with—had to have known the major facts of the case earlier. The city and bank countered that Sater’s deceit prevented them from bringing the case earlier.

“This is now the third time in the span of basically three or four years that a New York federal jury has found various conspirators of the people who are responsible for looting BTA Bank and the City of Almaty liable for their roles,” said Schwartz.