Were any criminal charges filed against Eric Trump or Trump companies regarding misuse of charity funds, and what were the legal outcomes in 2024–2025?
Executive summary
Available reporting shows no criminal charges specifically filed in 2024–2025 against Eric Trump or the Trump companies solely for misuse of charity funds; instead, the legal actions discussed in the provided materials are civil lawsuits and penalties tied to the Donald J. Trump Foundation and a separate New York business-fraud civil case involving Trump Organization entities, with civil remedies imposed in 2019–2024 and appeals continuing into 2025 [1] [2] [3]. New York’s attorney general previously secured a court-ordered $2 million payment in 2019 for Donald J. Trump’s foundation and civil rulings in 2024 included a $364 million disgorgement and corporate sanctions later appealed [1] [2] [3].
1. What was charged — mostly civil, not criminal
State enforcement against the Trump charities, as reflected in the materials, took the form of civil litigation brought by New York’s attorney general rather than new criminal indictments in 2024–2025. Barbara Underwood’s 2018 civil suit alleged “a shocking pattern of illegality” by the Donald J. Trump Foundation and its officers (including Ivanka, Donald Jr., and Eric), culminating in a 2019 court order that shut the foundation down, required restitution and training, and forced a $2 million payment to charities — a civil remedy, not a criminal conviction [4] [1] [5].
2. Penalties and injunctions: the 2019–2024 civil outcomes
The New York court ordered significant civil penalties and operational restrictions related to the Trump Foundation. In 2019 a settlement and court action required Donald Trump to pay $2 million to multiple charities and included admissions of misuse and restrictions on future charitable service for him and mandatory training for his adult children, including Eric Trump [1] [5]. Separate civil rulings in the New York business-fraud case imposed a $364 million disgorgement and other remedies against Trump and related entities in February 2024; those remedies relate to business valuations and corporate conduct and were subject to appeal [2] [3].
3. Eric Trump Foundation allegations and accounting disputes
Reporting going back years documented that the Eric Trump Foundation raised millions for St. Jude but also paid hundreds of thousands to Trump-owned properties for event costs, creating questions of self-dealing and donor messaging — matters that sparked state probes and media scrutiny but, in the provided sources, are discussed in the context of investigation and civil inquiry rather than criminal indictment in 2024–2025 [6] [7] [8].
4. Criminal vs. civil: what the sources explicitly show
The documents and press releases cited show civil enforcement by the attorney general and court-ordered remedies for misuse of charitable funds. They do not report a criminal indictment or criminal conviction in 2024–2025 against Eric Trump or Trump Organization companies specifically for misusing charity funds; available sources do not mention any new criminal charges during that period [1] [5] [2]. If a source in the set explicitly contradicted that (for example, reporting a criminal prosecution), it would appear in these results; it does not.
5. Appeals, ongoing litigation and broader civil exposure
The business-fraud civil case brought by New York also overlapped with findings about charitable misuse in prior AG actions and led to sweeping civil penalties that were appealed into 2025; one appellate development noted in the results is that an appeals court later (August 2025) upheld liability but voided the penalty as excessive in the broader business-fraud matter — underscoring that civil remedies continued to change through appeals [3]. The attorney general’s earlier charity suit sought restitution and the power to approve distribution of remaining foundation assets while pursuing monetary and supervisory remedies against the Trump family [9] [5].
6. Competing narratives and political context
State prosecutors and AG offices described the foundation activity as misuse of charitable assets and sought restitution and officer bans, while Trump lawyers characterized these outcomes as politically motivated overreach and “draconian” penalties, reflecting sharply divergent framings in public statements [2]. Advocacy and legal commentators used the cases as examples of nonprofit governance failures that can invite civil penalties, and other outlets highlighted the factual disputes over how much money the Eric Trump Foundation directly donated versus funds raised or attributed through affiliated efforts [7] [10].
7. What reporting here does not cover
Available sources do not mention any criminal charges brought in 2024–2025 specifically against Eric Trump or Trump companies for misuse of charity funds; they do not provide information about any new criminal referrals by prosecutors in that timeframe [1] [5]. They also do not include any final appellate decisions resolving all aspects of the civil remedies as of late 2025 beyond the snippets noting continued appeals in the business-fraud case [3].
Bottom line: based on the provided reporting, enforcement actions tied to alleged misuse of charitable funds were civil — settlements, court-ordered payments, injunctions and corporate penalties — with no cited new criminal prosecution of Eric Trump or Trump companies for charity misuse in 2024–2025; litigation and appeals continued to reshape civil remedies through 2025 [1] [2] [3].