A tax fraud case for $250 million had been filed against Felix Slater, who is a former Trump associate. This has been dismissed by a Manhattan court.

This civil tax fraud case was against Felix Sater and Bayrock, which is a real-estate company cofounded, by him. The whistleblower, in this case, was Fred Oberlander. He is a lawyer who had represented Jody Kriss at one time during a money-laundering suit that was filed against Bayrock.

Fred Oberlander claimed that his qui tam complaint had been based on certain information which had been stricken off from the original complaint by the federal judges. This was because these federal judges had termed this information as confidential and hence got it removed from this federal complaint.

The office of the Attorney General, namely, Eric Schneiderman, had refused last year to intervene in this case. This was clearly stated in a letter that was sent in February 2016. It notified the Supreme Court in New York that Fred Oberlander had issued a misleading press release earlier. It claimed that Eric Schneiderman had been promoting this case, while the fact was that the State had clearly declined to intervene in it.

Still, the office of the attorney general will be monitoring this case continually in order to protect the rights and interests of the State. The lawyer from their office has been present for the hearings of this case. The attorney has stated that this case had been dismissed on procedural grounds, and not on its merits. This means that the office of the attorney general can file this case again.

There has been no comment from the office of Eric Schneiderman in this regards. Richard Lerner is one of those lawyers who had brought this case against Sater with Fred Oberlander. He has said that he wants to appeal this decision.

In 2010, there was an initial lawsuit filed against Sater and Bayrock by Jody Kriss, who was its former Finance Director. He said that most of the operations of this company were substantially mob-owned as well as operated in a covert manner. This has led to a continuous pattern of related crimes. These would include mail, wire, along with bank fraud. Besides, there is tax evasion as well as money laundering too. All this has led to conspiracy and bribery; along with extortion; as well as embezzlement.

Jody Kriss has accused Sater as well as Tevfik Arif, who is the founder of this company. He has accused them of cheating him through misconduct that includes fraud, money laundering, as well as racketeering. All this has cost him millions of dollars. A New York judge had ruled in December that this lawsuit would be considered as a case of racketeering.

In this complaint filed by Jody Kriss; Sater along with Tevfik Arif has been accused of negotiations with the Trump Organization. This was in 2003 for marketing some projects that would be under the brand name of Trump. But Trump was not informed about the criminal past of Sater.

This is exactly what was disclosed by Trump in a 2007 deposition. He claimed that if he was aware of Sater’s past, his organization would not have partnered with him on the Trump SoHo development. He also said that he did not know Sater well enough and would not be able to recognize him even if he was in the same room.

Another fact remains that Sater's office was just two floors below the office of Trump in Trump Tower is located that on Fifth Avenue. It has been disclosed by a person, who requested anonymity, that Sater and Trump had meetings every week.