"Shark Tank" host Kevin O'Leary said he will never invest in New York now after a judge ordered former President Donald Trump to pay $355 million last week for conspiring to alter his net worth to receive tax and insurance benefits.
The order prevents Trump from doing business in New York for three years. The decision was the conclusion of a monthslong civil fraud trial that New York Attorney General Letitia James brought against the former president, The Trump organization, and his executives, the AP reported.
O'Leeary said he was shocked by the ruling.
"This award, I mean, just leaving the whole Trump thing out of it and seeing what occurred here … and I'm no different than any other investor, I'm shocked at this. I can't even understand or fathom the decision at all. There's no rationale for it," he said on Fox Business.
"We're very worried, every investor is worried because where is the victim? Who lost the money? This is some arbitrary decision a judge made," O'Leary said. "This policy … what does this say about the bar? About the legal bar in New York? Aren't they going to question this judge? What is this? $350 million and interest and there's no victim?"
"I would never invest in New York now," the CNBC host of "Shark Tank" added. "And I'm not the only person saying that." He said New York was already on the top of the list of being a "loser state" because of high taxes.
New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul said: "I think that this is really an extraordinary, unusual circumstance that the law-abiding and rule-following New Yorkers who are business people have nothing to worry about, because they're very different than Donald Trump and his behavior."
O'Leary wasn't impressed.
"I'm sorry her words fall on deaf ears to everybody," O'Leary responded. "There's nothing she can say to justify this decision. And this has nothing to do with Trump, nothing to do with Trump. Forget about Trump, this is not a Trump situation, this is a New York problem."
Trump praised O'Leary in a post on Truth Social, National Review reported.
"Kevin O'Leary is so great, and tells it like it is. Businesses will flee NYC & State after the Corrupt Judge's ruling!" he wrote.
This is not the first ruling against Trump in New York State. CBS News noted that Trump and his company have lost a series of costly, high-profile legal battles in New York in the last 14 months.
"Trump's losses have come in state and federal court, civil and criminal, in rulings by juries and judges," the story said. "A total of 30 jurors in three cases have unanimously ruled against Trump or his company.
"One of those juries was composed of citizens from heavily Democratic Manhattan, but two came in federal court in the Southern District of New York, with a pool of jurors from more politically diverse suburbs and exurbs."