The suit was one of a handful of Trump development busts in Florida and elsewhere that left people with hard feelings and without tens —and, in at least one case, hundreds — of thousands of dollars. | AP Photo GOP candidate for Florida attorney general once sued Trump in federal fraud case

MIAMI — Ashley Moody once accused Donald Trump of fraud in a federal lawsuit. But now that he’s president and she’s a top Republican candidate for Florida attorney general, Moody said she backs Trump and his agenda.

A former judge, Moody said a confidential settlement agreement prevents her from talking about the 54-plaintiff lawsuit that initially involved her father, U.S. District Judge James Moody, in 2009. It claimed Trump and the Trump Organization made a "series of fraudulent and negligent misrepresentations" concerning their involvement in the Trump Tower Tampa condominium project, a now-scuttled $300 million 190-unit development that was supposed to loom 52 stories above the Hillsborough River.


The suit was one of a handful of Trump development busts in Florida and elsewhere that left people with hard feelings and without tens —and, in at least one case, hundreds — of thousands of dollars. Real estate cases aside, Trump has lost big money in other lawsuits from Floridians who claim he swindled them, including a painter, golf club members and students of his now-defunct Trump University.

Of all the suits, the Moody family’s Trump Tower Tampa case stands out because it marks the first time that a plaintiff who sued Trump wound up running for statewide office — and then voicing her support for the person she once accused of fraud but now calls commander in chief.

“This matter had absolutely no bearing on my family's support of our President during the election, and I continue to support him and his agenda in Washington,” said Moody in a written statement to POLITICO Florida. She recently resigned her post as a Hillsborough County circuit judge to run for attorney general.

As for the case, she said she couldn’t say more because “the business litigation involving this issue was resolved back in 2011, and the terms of that settlement are confidential.”

The suit sought repayments for deposits on behalf of investors. The Moody suit didn’t represent all of the aggrieved. At least one person lost $200,000 on Trump Tower Tampa, according to a 2015 Tampa Bay Times article that detailed the case and Trump’s personal and professional efforts to make it appear as if he was more involved in the development than he really was.

“Trump and Trump Co., through marketing materials and public statements, held themselves out as true partners and joint developers of the project ... to entice the Plaintiffs and others to purchase units in the Trump Tower,” the complaint said. “In truth, Trump and Trump Co. were not partners or developers in Trump Tower, and had only sold the 'Trump' name to use in inducing buyers to purchase units.”

Trump had signed secret agreements with the project’s developer, SimDag/RoBEL, that stipulated he would earn as much as $4 million, primarily for licensing his name and for consulting to ensure the project met his standards of quality. When SimDag/RoBEL ran out of money and stopped paying him, Trump sued and then had his name taken off the project. That was the first clear evidence to investors and the public that Trump wasn’t the builder on the project or a financier.

Trump’s lawyers said in court filings that investors should have read the sales agreements, which made it clear that SimDag/RoBEL was the developer who was responsible for financing the project — not Trump. A judge, noting all of the lengths Trump went to in order to plug the project, ruled against Trump on that point.

During a deposition in the case, Trump was asked by a Moody family attorney why he didn’t give back the money he earned “since the project didn’t get built.”

Trump refused: “Well, because I had no obligation to ... give it back, number 1. And number 2, the money was a very small amount relative to — in fact, I would say that I lost money on this project.”

However, the court file indicates Trump invested nothing in capital costs for the project.

One investor, Jay Magner, was not part of the Moody suit and told the Tampa Bay Times that “I lost $130,000 … I didn't know people could take your money and not build the building.''

In another case, an investor in the International Hotel and Tower Fort Lauderdale named Alex Davis indicated to The New York Times in 2011 that he had a similar experience as the Trump Tower Tampa buyers. Davis said he didn’t realize Trump’s involvement with the project basically ended with his name.

“The last thing you ever expect is that somebody you revere will mislead you,” Davis, who said he lost $100,000, told the Times. “I bought into an idea of him, and it wasn’t what I thought it was.”

Due to the confidentiality settlement in Moody’s case, it’s unclear how much she and her family lost or recovered from Trump. During a brief call with a POLITICO Florida reporter, Moody said she couldn’t speak about the case until she checked with her attorneys.

The confidentiality agreement aside, Moody’s suit puts her in the strange position of seeking Trump’s support or avoiding his condemnation in her GOP primary in which she faces state Rep. Jay Fant, a Jacksonville Republican. Trump is still popular with Republican voters in Florida, a state he narrowly carried in the general election last November. In the March 15 Republican presidential preference primary last year, he blew away home-state Sen. Marco Rubio, winning 66 of 67 counties.

To make matters more awkward for Moody, she was encouraged to run for the statewide office in 2018 by term-limited Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who declined comment.

Bondi came under fire for not pursuing fraud allegations against Trump University about the same time that she solicited a $25,000 campaign contribution from Trump for her political committee, And Justice For All, in 2013.

Bondi always denied wrongdoing and said the Floridians who filed the complaints could have joined an ongoing New York case to pursue their claims. The state’s ethics commission found no probable cause to proceed with a complaint filed against Bondi because, its chairman said, there was “no evidence of a quid pro quo, and no evidence that she even knew of the complaints to her office,” her attorney told the Orlando Sentinel. Bondi has said she can’t see all complaints — 800,000 of which have been filed in more than six years — and the handful of Trump University claimants first filed grievances with her predecessor, Bill McCollum, who initially did not pursue the case.

The Trump University case also dogged Trump on the campaign trail where, despite his $25 million settlement in the case, he falsely claimed that “I don’t settle cases … I don’t get sued too often, because I don’t settle cases, I win cases in court.”

But that wasn’t the case in February, when he lost a $5.7 million case to Trump National Jupiter Golf Club members who said Trump's team essentially confiscated refundable deposits. Last year, another judge ordered Trump National Doral Miami to pay $300,000 for allegedly stiffing a painter for about $34,000 in work.

Like Moody, painter Juan Carlos Enriquez is a Republican who voted for Trump, despite his court fight against him. "Politics and business are two different things,” Enriquez, 52, told NBC News.

Shortly after Bondi endorsed Moody, she was informed about the Moody lawsuit against Trump. When asked if Bondi — a die-hard Trump supporter who endorsed him over Rubio in Florida’s presidential primary — was upset about the Moody family’s suit, Moody told POLITICO Florida in a brief telephone call “oh, no. That’s not true.”

Asked if she spoke with Bondi about the case, Moody wouldn’t say. She referred questions to her political adviser, Marc Reichelderfer, who also works for Bondi’s political committee.

Bondi told the Tampa Bay Times last week that she’s backing Moody to be her successor because she has known “her most of her life … I don't think there could be a more qualified candidate for attorney general in the entire state of Florida. I whole-heartedly support Ashley and I'm proud of her for wanting to sacrifice so much for our state."