Greg Toppo

USATODAY

A federal judge in San Diego declined on Thursday to issue an immediate ruling in the multi-million-dollar settlement related to President Trump's defunct "Trump University" real estate program, keeping open the possibility that a Florida woman could still sue the president.

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who became a lightning rod for Trump's criticisms during the 2016 campaign, was expected to rule on whether a November 2016 settlement in the fraud case should be finalized. After hearing evidence in the case on Thursday, Curiel said he would not rule immediately. A ruling in the case could come anytime, including later Thursday, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

The $25 million settlement, announced 10 days after Trump’s Nov. 8 election, ended three lawsuits against Trump University: two filed in California, including a class action suit that was scheduled to go to trial later that month, and a third brought by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who called the real estate program “a fraud from beginning to end.”

The lawsuits alleged that Trump University offered seminars that were more like infomercials, pressuring customers to spend more and, in the end, failing to deliver.

Schneiderman, a Democrat, said in a statement at the time that he had sued Trump for “swindling thousands of innocent Americans out of millions of dollars. Today, that all changes,” The Washington Post reported.

The settlement, which affected about 6,000 former Trump University students, included a $1 million penalty paid to New York State for violating its education laws — the program called itself a “university” despite offering no degrees or traditional education.

At the time, Trump Organization General Counsel Alan Garten said Trump would have prevailed at trial, but that he settled so he could “devote his full attention to the important issues facing our great nation.” Trump admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement.

Curiel approved a preliminary settlement in December, and attorneys in the case predicted that the former students would get at least 80% of their money back, based on the roughly 3,730 claims submitted, The Associated Press reported.

But two of the plaintiffs objected, with one saying she wanted to opt out of the settlement and sue the president individually. Sherri Simpson, an attorney in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said she and a partner paid $35,000 in 2010 to enroll in Trump University's "Gold Elite" program, to be paired with a mentor who would teach them Trump's secret real estate investment strategies.

Simpson said they got little for the money — the videos were 5 years old, the materials covered information that could be found free on the internet and her mentor didn't return calls or emails.

"I would like an admission that he was wrong, an admission that, 'Oops, maybe I didn't handle it as well as I should have, I didn't set it up as well as I should have, that I didn't maintain it or oversee it as well as I should have,'" Simpson told AP this week.

During the election, she appeared in two anti-Trump campaign ads.

Attorneys for both Trump and the plaintiffs have said the deadline to opt out passed in November 2015. Thirteen people opted out before that date, none of whom have shown a desire to sue the president. Another customer, Harold Doe, objected to the settlement because he wants more money, according to court filings by attorneys for Trump and the plaintiffs.

The lawsuit dogged Trump during the campaign, and the GOP nominee seemed to make the matter worse, at times, by attacking Curiel. Trump suggested that the judge's Mexican heritage exposed a bias, since Trump campaigned on building a wall between the USA and Mexico. Curiel was born in Indiana.

Contributing: AP; Follow Greg Toppo on Twitter: @gtoppo